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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23091949">Hell and Highwater</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naolin/pseuds/Naolin'>Naolin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Oxenfree (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A World Without Alex, A World Without Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Not Step Siblings, Romance, kind of, uhhh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:16:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,541</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23091949</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naolin/pseuds/Naolin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Not all decisions have to be permanent, Alex." // "I don't like temporary things."</p><p>Two alternate worlds. That's all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alex/Jonas (Oxenfree)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>90</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. remember</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So at first I just wanted to play with the idea of - like, when you sacrifice Clarissa, she gets retroactively written out. So if Alex sacrifices herself, then wouldn't she...? But then as I got towards the end of this, I was like: Wait... Um... Now I wanna write this other scenario too...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The idea behind a spirit box is that ghosts can speak through radio waves. That's all it is, really. Just a radio, quickly scanning for any signal it can find and then moving on to the next just as quick. In the garbled mess of white-noise, in the mix of static and snippets of channels, in those split-second fractions of words, there are ghosts. Their power over reality is limited, and so they tug and pull at whatever they can grasp, until they can speak through stolen seconds.</p><p>Jonas doesn't know why this concept sticks in his brain.</p><p>He must have seen it on a tv show or something, somewhere innocuous, but now it's like the whole idea tickles something. Sets his skin on fire just beneath the surface and makes it<em> itch</em>.</p><p>He feels unnerved, watching Ren fiddle with a radio.</p><p>It's just a little handheld thing - teal and scuffed up like it's been kicked under the bed, lost and found one too many times. The dial sticks and it makes a cracking sort of click when it moves, as if it has to break itself apart to function.</p><p>Jonas has been watching it so intently that it was probably his fault they are sitting in silence. He lost track of what Ren was saying, because something inside him wants to turn inside out at the sight of that radio. It's wrong, somehow, at its core. Something about it is just viscerally <em>wrong</em>.</p><p>Jonas tells himself he's just nervous. He's the new kid, it's a new town, and an overnight party on the beach is a pretty big deal. He's just hyper-focusing on something random. It's a color he likes, that's all. His mind wants to hold onto the details of it because of the color. That's all. That's all.</p><p>The shadows creeping up on them are pitch black. The dark feels sickly and oppressive. Maybe it's just the neon-bright of the convenience store lights making the contrast too stark as it glows against their backs. It's like sitting in a spotlight with the world falling away at its edges. It's all so heavy, in a way that neither light or dark should be.</p><p>Jonas kicks his beat-up shoes against the parking curb. A spotlight feels like an apt metaphor for his anxiety tonight, but it's fine. He wills himself to just be patient for their guest of honor.</p><p>Ren has a sister.</p><p>Allison, apparently. Willing to buy them beer, apparently. Going to show up, supposedly.</p><p>Whatever. Despite the uneven pulse of his heart, trying to match the click-click-click of Ren idly twisting that radio dial, and despite the way the night has been draping over him like a cold, wet towel, he's glad to have some time alone before the party. Just him and Ren.</p><p>It's one thing to be The New Kid With A Bad Reputation around <em>one</em> person, it will be a whole other beast in a crowd.</p><p>It's going to be hard to find his place in Camena. It isn't like there's an empty silhouette just waiting for him to step into it. This late in the school year, this small of a city, Jonas is sure that everyone's social groups are well established.</p><p>That thought has been rattling in his head ever since he found out he was moving and switching schools, but tonight Jonas suddenly thinks he could be wrong. Like - maybe there <em>is</em> some sort of hollow spot. On reserve for the right person.</p><p>He imagines it too easily. The empty outline. It rests in every beat of silence after one of Ren's awful jokes or stories. It's in every moment when Jonas isn't sure if he should be playing along or playing the straight-man, or if he's too annoyed for either.</p><p>He doesn't know who he's supposed to be yet - barely knows who Ren is yet. He feels as if he is reflexively looking for someone to just tell him the answers.<br/>
<br/>
That's the thing about this emptiness, Jonas thinks. It doesn't exactly seem like <em>he's</em> the one who's meant to fill it. For some reason, more than nerves, more than the anxiety of being new and being <em>surrounded</em> by new, that hollow space has an ache to it.</p><p>He shivers. He's cold, and he wants to smoke, and the longer they sit here, the less sure he is that he wants to go to this party at all.</p><p>Internally, he talks himself down from just going home. Tells himself: it's just a new kid thing. And that feeling of displacement, that perpetual search for someone missing? That's just a <em>life</em> thing. Or an everything-you-own-in-boxes thing. A new town thing. A new school thing.</p><p>But it's also a grief thing. A hospital visits, empty house, and funeral thing. You miss someone, so you want to find someone. But you never will, because people aren't replaceable. That's all. That's all.</p><p>The dial doesn't click.</p><p>If Ren feels at all guilty for making Jonas sit outside a convenience store for nearly an hour, it doesn't show. He simply stands up and says, "Alright, I'm calling it. I'm done. I am <em>officially</em> marking Alex absent."</p><p>Jonas's head snaps up. The nausea is back for just one surge, a tidal wave press inside his abdomen. It feels like something is caught in his throat. It feels like he can't breathe.</p><p>"Who?"</p><p>"Allie," Ren repeats. His back pops as he twists around in place. He turns back to Jonas and frowns. "You know - Allison? Our <em>alleged</em> benefactor for the night?"</p><p>"Oh." Jonas says, leaning back. His heart is still racing. He doesn't know why; it's not even like he knows an Alex. "Right."</p><p>***</p><p>Jonas smokes over the railing on the ferry ride. Ren makes a face, but still sticks beside him to chat. Jonas appreciates the gesture, but not enough to stop smoking. He could use the stress relief and doubts he'll get another good chance.</p><p>Then again, having an excuse to step away from a crowd later doesn't sound so bad.</p><p>There's something captivating about the ocean. Dark waves push against the boat; the surface of the sea is pitch-black, glinting with moonlight.</p><p>Jonas has always been unnerved by water that he can't see the bottom of. Even so, it's nice. It's relaxing to feel the mist and the sway of the boat. To leave the brand new city behind, even if just for the night, even if for a brand new island.</p><p>No party yet. No strangers, no rumors, no reputation. Just lights in the distance, refracting and spreading out as they hit the fog, and a deep warm in his chest.</p><p>That has always been the part he <em>really</em> likes about smoking. Embers in his lungs. He likes to imagine them glowing there as he breathes, the same way the red light on the ship glows gentle on the fog.</p><p>They talk about tobacco and weed and the differences between the two, until Ren goes from talking about edibles to going off on some kind of tangent about gift shop cookies. He only shuts up about them when his shitty band plays on the radio, and Jonas laughs, and he acts like he's listening, but all his ears want to focus on is the white noise they'd had to tune through first.</p><p>Nonsensically, he thinks of spirit boxes; of radios with purposefully broken scanners. He thinks of the kind of people who would break something just to chase an illusion.</p><p>The ferry drifts to the docks, and a pre-recorded reminder tells them not to forget anything.</p><p>"Check under your seat to make sure you don't leave behind any grandchildren," Ren mocks.</p><p>"That ever happen?" Jonas asks. "Someone forgetting a kid behind?"</p><p>"Probably? I feel like something like that's happened, for sure."</p><p>The docks creaking under his feet sober Jonas up in an instant. It's a piercing reminder that he is going to have to meet strangers and spend the whole evening with them. The world, or maybe just the island, is already complaining about his unwelcome weight on it.</p><p>***</p><p>No one on Edward's Island is who he expects them to be. And that's setting aside that Jonas had been under the impression there would be <em>more </em>of them.</p><p>He doesn't know what he <em>had </em>expected, honestly, when he imagined what Ren's friends would be like. All he knows is that when he steps up to the group of them, the world goes a bit sideways. As if the blurry haze overtop their little bonfire is everywhere he looks, skewing his sight no matter how much he stares. He keeps blinking, squinting, like he wants to find someone else, like there's smoke in his eyes.</p><p>For someone Ren is sweet on, Nona is more subdued than he would have thought. Maybe he thought she'd be a little more rough and tumble. Someone suited to keeping up with Ren's antics — or pulling him into them, herself.</p><p>She's cute enough that Jonas <em>gets</em> it, at least. He likes her blue hair, and he likes the subtle rebellious streak in her. Maybe rebellious isn't the right word. Jonas gets the impression that she likes what she likes, cares about what she cares about, and that it doesn't matter to her what anyone else thinks.</p><p>She may be passive and spacy, but there's a sharpness to her in the shape of loyalty to someone else's fangs.</p><p>Not that Clarissa is quite as mean as she keeps joking she is. It's like every snide comment has an underlying wink. The way she rolls her eyes at the others is just as fond as it is impatient. “Bitchy,” is what Clarissa calls herself, early in the night, and Jonas usually hates girls that say that like it's a good thing. But somehow she makes it charming.</p><p>She and Michael balance each other out.</p><p>Jonas has only been in Camena for, what, a couple of days, and only one of them in school? The fact that he's already heard the guy's reputation speaks volumes.</p><p>Everyone talks about him like he's perfect, and the startling thing is: he kind of <em>is.</em> He isn't perfect like adults want him to be, granted. He is equal parts the enabler and the responsible one. Both a mature supervisor of their underage drinking — and the one who brought the drinks to begin with. The one to scold them from getting too close to the waves at night, and the one to suggest they break into the mansion up the hill.</p><p>Clarissa shuts that down, and Jonas is kind of glad. He's had enough of the empty spaces dead women leave behind. The way entire rooms sit in stasis, like they've only stepped away, like they'll be back any moment. The traces of their day-to-day life feel heavy, and he doesn't want his mood plummeting that hard when he's trying to have a nice night out and be passably cool.</p><p>Clarissa's impatient "I don't want to rip my jeans," makes for a much better excuse.</p><p>Michael laughs, unbothered by her harsh tone. "Then I'll just have to sneak off with Ren, later."</p><p>If it had only been adults who put Michael on that pedestal, Jonas would have assumed he was just a dickhead jock. The type that always fools parents and teachers, but not their peers. The type who's good at faking smiles for the grown-ups and tearing apart their classmates in secret.</p><p>But the rumors about him were from everyone's mouths, and after meeting him, Jonas understands. He's just — cool. Mellow and quick to laugh, never to emphasize an awkward moment, but to soothe it away.</p><p>He almost manages to make Jonas feel like he fits in. He almost manages to make Jonas feel like there isn't a distinct <em>absence, </em>or like if there is, maybe he <em>could </em>be the one that fits in it.</p><p>Almost.</p><p>But the cold air only makes Jonas more and more aware of the inside of his own lungs. You're never as aware of something as when it's gone missing, only he doesn't <em>know </em>what's missing. So he just drinks, and he breathes, and he thinks about embers in his lungs as the night frosts them over.</p><p>By the firelight, buzzed, they play Truth or Slap — a more violent, local flavor of Truth or Dare. Apparently.</p><p>Jonas obeys the bro-code and doesn't slap Ren in the face for denying his crush on Nona, although he has to pay dutiful attention to his beer to beat back the impulse. He tries to lean away from violent tendencies, these days, playful or not, but secretly wishes someone had done it.</p><p>Clarissa's truth is that she wants a tattoo, but hasn't settled on what yet. Michael's truth is that he might bail from Camena completely as soon as Clarissa has graduated, after the gap year he's taking.</p><p>Ren seems more scandalized by the news than Nona does, but there's a way that her shoulders sag, and a way that she won't quite look at Clarissa for another minute that Jonas can't help but notice. He figures she probably just doesn't want to be left behind, and briefly he thinks it's a good thing he didn't really have any friends back in Westedge. He doesn't like the idea of leaving someone behind like that.</p><p>On Michael's turn, he takes a long sip of his beer. He waits until Clarissa nudges him, then asks, looking guilty, but too curious to hold back, "So — the rumors true?"</p><p>Jonas considers asking "<em>What rumors</em>," because if he has to feel uncomfortable, the least everyone else could do is suffer the awkward moment with him. Instead he just says, "Yeah. I mean… Basically."</p><p>The tension has been ebbing and flowing all night, and now the tide of discomfort is in, pushing at his skin from inside him. The waves — the real waves — are much louder than Jonas had realized. He is overly aware of them, and of the fact that he is trapped on this island overnight, stuck with these people and whatever they make of him.</p><p>Ren isn't looking at him, like if he doesn't make eye contact he doesn't have to acknowledge anything unpleasant. Clarissa mutters, "Damn," as Nona says, quietly, "Huh."</p><p>Jonas keeps his expression indifferent, but there is a sinking feeling in his gut as he realizes that he probably should not have come to this party tonight.</p><p>Then Michael shrugs and says, "Eh. Stuff can make you crazy. I think it can happen to anyone."</p><p>It's more complicated than that, and Jonas is equal parts relieved and uncomfortable at having it dismissed so easily. But one of these things makes the night go smoother, and it is what it is.</p><p>Michael sounds sincere, at least. Jonas doesn't think he'd believe it from anyone else, and avoids responding by taking a sip of beer.</p><p>Michael doesn't let him get away with it. "You doing okay, now?"</p><p>"Mostly," Jonas says, and can't decide if he's lying or not. He wonders what they make of that. Wonders if it comes off as tough-guy bullshit or vulnerability. His beer tastes bitter in his mouth and he tries not to over-think it.</p><p>Ren lets out a small "Hm," like he's about to say something else, but Clarissa interrupts him, drawling, "Well, cool job making this awkward for the newbie. You did great."</p><p>Nona and Michael both laugh, and Ren adds a playful, "Yeah, jeeeeez."</p><p>The moment burns away. The night sails on.</p><p>***</p><p>But a lot of things happen, after that. A lot of things that start like this:</p><p>There is a cave. The cave is empty, but Jonas doesn't expect it to be. He doesn't know why.</p><p>There is a radio. The radio is teal, but Jonas doesn't expect it to be. He doesn't know why.</p><p>There is no triangle up above and there is no armoire up ahead. Jonas expects there to be. He doesn't know why.</p><p>But the wrong radio in the empty cave still opens up a hole in the sky. Like opening a door, or a gate. Like looking up from beneath the surface of the sea. Like looking into the past, or the future. Like hearing voices, or like—</p><p>***</p><p>The night ends like this:</p><p>Outside of a bomb shelter, Michael wraps his arms around Jonas with a weary sort of laugh, and all Jonas can do is stare dumbly at the shoulder of his red jacket.</p><p>In the hospital, his mother wraps her arms around Jonas with a weak sort of laugh, and all Jonas can do is grimace and stare at the white walls behind her.</p><p>On the ship, the five of them wrap their arms around each other with a shared, forced laugh, and all Jonas can do is stare past the camera and into the thick grey fog.</p><p>***</p><p>And the night stays with him like this:</p><p>A submarine full of people sank and it wasn't their fault. A woman was trapped and it wasn't her fault. These things are not created equal. They do not balance each other out. The latter does not give the former closure. The former will not give the latter reprieve.</p><p>A unified voice like a pre-recording says as much. <em>It's too late</em>, it says. <em>But it was nice of you to follow the rules</em>, it says. <em>Nice of </em>you<em> not to make a fuss</em>.</p><p><em>Wake up,</em> says a weaker voice through the same speakers. Radio clippings, flickering in and out. Less control, maybe. Newer, maybe. The first voice they had heard that night, the voice that tried to warn them away.</p><p>A new voice, after that. Feminine and hesitant: <em>Alex, don't— </em></p><p>Cut short.</p><p>An anomaly, Jonas thinks, palms sweating.</p><p>And then it's over. They're headed home, safe in the sunrise.</p><p>***</p><p>If one good thing came from the night, it is what Ren calls "a friendship forged in shared trauma."</p><p>Despite their fighting on the island, and despite their<em> continued</em> fighting off of it, Ren is still Jonas's best friend, and that feels like something of a miracle. New kid plus bad time shouldn't equal great friendship, let alone one that overshadows everyone Ren used to hang out with before Jonas came along.</p><p>Sometimes Jonas feels a little guilty, like he stole Ren away from his old friends or something, but he doesn't linger on it. Ren certainly doesn't. Maybe his old friends weren't really what he needed, Jonas thinks. Maybe Ren is looking for someone, too.</p><p>At any rate, it's nice to have a reason to look forward to going to school. Sometimes Jonas thinks he might have dropped out otherwise. He might have just… Stopped going. He knows that his dad would have let him. Would have checked in on him and kept circling around him, fretting like any responsible parent should. But in the end he would have let him.</p><p>It's a scary thought. What he would do if he were left to his own devices. If he were really alone.</p><p>There's something about grief that wants to overtake his whole identity, Jonas thinks. There is something about losing someone that makes his mind want to center who he is and how he lives around that loss. His head says that the imploding star inside of his chest will someday come to rest, but it wants to burn him up first, wants to consume everything else until it's all that's left. Knowing something will change and having the patience to wait it out are two very different things.</p><p>Especially when you're afraid. Because the truth of the matter is that when someone dies, nothing new will come from them. All that you have and all that you will <em>ever</em> have is whatever was left behind. You cling to it, because it is the end of the world within a world that keeps spinning on.</p><p>Hurting is a part of that. The hurt is something to cling to.</p><p>So it's nice, Jonas thinks, that there is someone besides himself that pulls him out of that cycle. Even if Ren probably doesn't exactly realize his own impact.</p><p>It's nice to care about something new.</p><p>It's nice to get invited out to third-wheel some of Ren's dates with Nona, or fifth-wheel, if Clarissa and Michael are along. It's nice to have a table to sit at during lunch break, and it's nice to have someone to glance at when someone in class says something stupid.</p><p>It's nice to have someone to call his name when he stares off into the distance for too long. When he is searching in a crowd, or in the sky, or in the waves. When he is searching the fog in the mornings, or through a haze of heavy rain, or between the trees in the ever-present forests that loom like a backdrop all around Camena.</p><p>As if he subconsciously expects to find someone in these spaces — it is a comfort that there is often someone to pull him back and remind him that he won't.</p><p>***</p><p>It's strange that the first person he almost talks to about that feeling is Nona.</p><p>Ren leaves the two of them alone in his room. A moment later, Jonas glances up as if about to speak to someone. Not Nona or Ren, but surely he had <em>someone </em>in mind. The disappointment of an empty space crashes over him like a tidal wave; as it recedes it drags his confusion to the surface.</p><p>This has been happening far too often. When did this start?</p><p>He looks over to Nona. He gets as far as blurting out: “Hey, do you ever feel like,” before Nona's casually inquisitive look has his mouth snapping shut.</p><p>There is something uncomfortable about spilling something he does not want to say to his own best friend to his best friend's <em>girlfriend, </em>of all people. It feels vaguely inappropriate. Which he would just brush off, sure, except for that Nona <em>is</em> actually very cute. If he hadn't already mentally designated her as '<em>The Girl Ren Likes'</em> before they even met, he probably would have asked her out.</p><p>But Jonas isn't big on competitions, and more than that, he isn't big on losing them.</p><p>If he's being honest, Jonas doesn't think there'd be much chemistry there, anyway. Nona keeps up the illusion of passivity, and this is endearing, but Jonas thinks it means the two of them would never do anything interesting if they were left to themselves. People like them, with a restless energy hidden in their hearts, need people to pull it out of them. He imagines it's something like this that draws her to Clarissa and to Ren.</p><p>Her expression falters before she offers a soft smile in his silence. “... Like things get real awkward when we're not all together?”</p><p>Jonas feels like this is a trick question. It's too close to what he had wanted to ask, too close to acknowledging an absence he can't explain. He watches her, almost cautiously, and nods.</p><p>“It's not just you,” Nona says, as if this is reassuring. She purses her lips, and like him, seems to be struggling to articulate something. She sighs, then brightens, and he gets the impression that what she says is not what she had wanted to. "But hey, prom is soon. And we'll all be there for that. Like a big old… Group date."<br/>
<br/>
Jonas groans, just in time for Ren to come back, kicking the door shut behind himself.</p><p>"Are we harassing Jonas?"</p><p>"Always," Jonas says, as Nona feigns offense with a hand to her chest.</p><p>***<br/>
 </p><p>Jonas doesn't want to go to prom. It strikes him as <em>deeply</em> pointless at a school he's been at for only a matter of weeks, with nothing in particular to celebrate, and with no one he wants to ask on a date.</p><p>But he goes, because Ren complains when he says he won't. That's becoming an alarmingly stable pattern.</p><p>At least the chances of <em>this</em> party being haunted is decidedly slimmer.</p><p>He goes, and it's dark, and it's loud, and it's full of people he barely knows talking to other people he barely knows. The music is <em>standard</em>, the drinks go un-spiked, the decorations are generic. All in all, Jonas is bored by it, and spends most of his time there trying to find somewhere secluded to play on his phone without looking like a dick.</p><p>There is so much noise. So many voices and so many sounds, blurring together like static, and he keeps hearing—<em>something</em>. It's like a spirit box, he thinks. Like the ghosts talking through the radio in snippets. He hears one person say a word and another person say another, and the music bends, bass and drums pushing their way into the wrong shape, into a voice.</p><p>It's at the edge of his memory and he squints, and the floor pulses under the weight of his classmates, and everyone is moving out of sync.</p><p>He feels nauseous.</p><p>When he finds Michael, the older boy is blowing bubbles over the edge of the upper balcony.</p><p>Jonas stumbles his way along the row of empty seats with one hand on the railing. He drops down into the seat beside Michael, immediately slouching as low as he can, as if he could sink deep enough into the chair to escape this hell.</p><p>It kind of works. No one else seems to have found their way up here, and the music completely overtakes all the shouted conversations happening below. The flashing lights aren't nearly as obnoxious if he blocks them out partially with the railing.</p><p>Jonas kicks his feet up onto the balcony ledge and links his fingers over his stomach. He watches the bubbles catch light as they slowly drop over the edge and out of sight.</p><p>Michael dips the bubble wand into the bottle and says, by way of greeting, "I shouldn't be here."</p><p>Jonas glances his way, taking in what he can see of Michael when the lights strobe.</p><p>Jonas has never been picky between boys and girls, though he knows better than to say that out loud around other high schoolers in a small town. Still, something about calling how he feels about Michael a 'crush' doesn't sit exactly right. He isn't sure what else it could be, so he chalks that up to typical repression and social conditioning.</p><p>It's just that — when Jonas looks at Michael, that feeling of absence, of longing, hits him so acutely that he can hardly function. It's a stab in the heart. In his day-to-day life the rhythmic surging and resurging of that feeling is dulled. It comes in passive, constant waves. But when Michael is around it's like fanned flames at the bottom of his lungs. Like shadows growing longer when you're too close to the light.</p><p>"I doubt you're the only graduate here," Jonas says, consolingly.</p><p>Michael looks at him for a long moment, as if dissatisfied with that response but too polite to say so.</p><p>Jonas shifts his legs uncomfortably. "Uh. So where's Clarissa?"</p><p>"Nona spilled something on her dress, so they disappeared into the ladies' room." Michael laughs. "You know what I've figured out? Clarissa doesn't want me to feel left out, and she doesn't want to pick between spending time with me or spending time with Nona. But if she <em>did </em>decide? A lot of the time it'd be Nona. I think she worries about it more than I do."</p><p>Jonas just nods, unsure if this is some kind of insecure admission or a confident observation. He can't always tell, with Michael. There are secrets hidden in his sincerity. At least the dark is comfortable, far away from everyone else and giving a good cover; Jonas doesn't have to worry about his own expression.</p><p>"Take heed, Jonas. When you get a girlfriend, <em>never</em> expect to outrank her best friend."</p><p>Jonas chooses to ignore the advice and steers the conversation away. "If Nona's with Clarissa, that means Ren's been abandoned."</p><p>As much as he wants to stay, as much as he wants to linger by Michael's side — and as much as he wants to stay here, where the sounds are dulled and he is nearly alone — he draws himself back out of his seat.</p><p>"I'd better go find him."</p><p>Ren still has plenty of other friends, Jonas knows. But he also knows that he's Ren's favorite. The certainty is comforting.<br/>
 </p><p>Michael leans toward him, with a cut off, "I—" and for a moment looks so hurried that Jonas thinks he might reach out.</p><p>A beat passes. Michael relaxes again, and Jonas leans against the railing to give him time to sort out what he wants to say.</p><p>"I had this dream the other night," Michael blurts out, almost nonsensically. "Where I drowned. Which isn't that weird, on its own. I know I'm not the only one who has dreams like that after… Everything. But usually those are about the ocean, or… Something scarier."</p><p><em>Scarier than drowning? </em>Jonas thinks. He says: "Sometimes dreams are just dreams. Just your brain processing a whole bunch of random stuff at once."</p><p>"Yeah, I guess so," Michael's voice drifts, unconvinced. After a moment, he continues. "It was at this lake, or like, a public park by a lake? Which… I guess you probably wouldn't even know where it is, anyway, but… Anyway, mom used to have these yearly company picnics out there. Dad never wanted to go, so it was always just me and mom. It was like our <em>thing</em>. Every Summer she would bring us—"</p><p>"—Us?"</p><p>"Me."</p><p>A quick correction. Jonas crosses his arms over his chest and tries to pretend his heartrate hasn't spiked. The long pause and the way Michael's eyes slice away from Jonas like he's been caught in a lie — they can't just be in Jonas's head.</p><p>After a moment, Michael continues. "My dreams are usually vague, but this was… Specific. It was about a year ago, but not with mom or anything. Like maybe we were celebrating something. And…"</p><p>Jonas waits a minute. He does not point out that Michael said 'we.' The thumping music below them is a distant pulse, and now he wishes it were not so dark. "And…?"</p><p>Michael shrugs. He sets down his bottle on the floor and says, like a joke, "And I drowned. That's was it, that was the whole dream."</p><p>That <em>isn't </em>it, Jonas wants to snap, because Michael always does this, always soothes <em>past</em> the point Jonas can stand. He'd liked it at first, appreciated it even, but the longer he knows him the more it seems like a good skill that gets abused. Like he learned that it works and now he can't stop doing it for even the most minor of potential conflicts.</p><p>They stay there in a silence that Michael can't manifest comfort into. It feels like a scrambled station inside Jonas's head, like he's just a degree off from being able to tune into his own thoughts properly.</p><p>"It just made me think that something's wrong," Michael admits, eventually.</p><p>"What would be wrong? The ghosts wanted you, but they didn't <em>get</em> you. Closed deal. The stuff on the island is over."</p><p>Michael slowly hunches forward, his head between his knees and his fingers clasping over the back of his neck. A long sigh floats up first, then: "I don't know. Is it? Do you even remember what happened?"</p><p>"The parts that I haven't blocked out." He means it as a joke, but it isn't untrue.</p><p>Michael laughs, but there's a frustration to it. He presses, "What parts were those? What parts have you already forgotten?"</p><p>Jonas shifts his weight uncomfortably. "I don't remember exactly what order we went places in. But things were crazy, I just remember — things that happened. It's not like I can remember what I <em>don't</em> remember."</p><p>Michael is quiet.</p><p>"I don't remember closing the gate very well," Jonas admits, as if Michael's silence is pulling the words from him by force. "That whole part is… Vague."</p><p>Michael opens his mouth, brow furrowing, but he does not say anything. He looks as if he's trying. Starting and stopping numerous times.</p><p>It goes on for too long, and Jonas has goosebumps on his arms. His heart wants to match the tempo of the music downstairs. "Whatever you're thinking, say it," he demands.</p><p>"Do you want to go back?" Michael asks. Something about the way he says it has Jonas thinking he means— "I mean, like, right now."</p><p>"Uh," Jonas says, and thinks about ghosts, and radiation, and drowning, but for some ungodly reason still answers, "Yeah. Yeah, alright."</p><p>"Go find Ren, then."</p><p>"You think he'll want to come?"</p><p>"No, I think he'll want to know where you went."</p><p>Jonas does not have to ask if Clarissa or Nona will want to come; he knows they won't.</p><p>They all have varying levels of success with coping. Nona's is surprisingly high, but Jonas isn't sure she ever saw as much as the rest of them did. Clarissa's is unsurprisingly low. He can't imagine her being alright with Michael bolting in the middle of prom, on a whim, back to an island that tried to steal his soul. But in the end he figures it isn't his business to take a side in that fight.</p><p>When they meet back up at the doors, Michael claims she doesn't mind at all.</p><p>Jonas doesn't know if these unendingly patient sides of Clarissa are reserved only for Michael, or if Michael is just a good liar.</p><p>***</p><p>The ferry is crowded, and for whatever reason, this has Michael doubled over with laughter.</p><p>"Sorry, no, it's just not what I had pictured," he manages, gasping for breath.</p><p>At least they fit in. Most of the other passengers look like high schoolers, in varying shades of formal-wear. Maybe they're doing their own <em>bash on the beach </em>or maybe they just want to take some photos.</p><p>All it does is press a surreal reminder into Jonas's skull that the island is still there. It's right there, and people still visit it. The ferry still runs. There are still skaters that graffiti up the army school ruins at night and there are still gift shops that open in the daytime.</p><p>Michael is still laughing, but it puts Jonas on edge.</p><p>If he can't remember them closing the rift, who's to say they <em>did? </em></p><p>Who's to say any one of these stupid teenagers around them is going to come back as themselves?</p><p>The crowd disperses at the docks. In the end, a handful of teenagers is easy to lose track of across an entire island, even a small one. It leaves Michael and Jonas alone, both suddenly unsure of what, exactly, they are doing here.</p><p>Michael takes initiative, and Jonas trails behind him slowly. He watches Michael's back as he descends the steps down to the street, and some impulse in him wants to call out to him. He swallows it back, unsure of where it comes from or what he would even say.</p><p>The path to the beach is long, and they pass the occasional cluster of teens lounging along the way.</p><p>The more it happens, the more it feels like a comfort.</p><p>It's like what she had said about the building being reclaimed by the trees and the soot and the soil — but in reverse. An island being reclaimed by the living. Maybe just his memories being reclaimed by life.</p><p>Jonas stops mid-step, his mind-blanking as he realizes he has no idea <em>who</em> he was quoting. A wave passes through him and it feels like electricity, like high-voltage vibrations inside his head, a violent tremor in the air itself, but just as quickly it's gone. There was a voice on the edge of it, but he can't hear it, now.</p><p>He doesn't know why his eyes sting.</p><p>Michael has gotten too far ahead. He doesn't seem to be paying Jonas much mind at all, but Jonas doesn't care. He knows he's too in his own head right now to complain about the same thing from someone else. It's part of what's nice about Michael; it's nice to just be quiet together, like this.</p><p>Jonas follows footprints in sand, up to a fence and Michael's side.</p><p>"Cave's caved in," Michael says, neutrally. Then lets out a small laugh.</p><p>Jonas rolls his eyes. "We already knew that."</p><p>"Yeah, I guess so.</p><p>They linger a moment longer before Michael takes the lead again, plodding his way up the steps to the Addler house, stopping halfway there.</p><p>Both of them lean on the railing.</p><p>"Do you remember Ren's book?" Michael asks.</p><p>"No."</p><p>"From the island."</p><p>"Still no."</p><p>Michael looks amused and shakes his head. "It had this passage he read us. About remembering things that never happened."</p><p>Jonas shivers; they are high up, close to the shore, and the sun has set. The wind is biting; these kinds of jackets clearly weren't meant to be worn for warmth. "I guess that sounds vaguely familiar."</p><p>Michael's gaze turns to the sea, a deeper black than the sky. "The concept's just been popping into my head lately."</p><p>He tries to imagine something momentous happening. Ghosts resurfacing to give them answers; the ever-elusive concept of closure that he's beginning to doubt exists. But if that was really what he had really expected, he wouldn't have come in the first place.</p><p>Jonas likes to imagine that he's not a coward, like maybe all the fear has been drained out of him for good. But there's still no shame in avoiding things you know are dangerous.</p><p>In the end, it is precisely what he had expected it to be.</p><p>It's just a quiet night on the beach, listening to the waves by Michael's side.</p><p>***</p><p>They make it home on the last ferry of the night — later than it usually runs. Maybe the city knows that kids like to skip out on prom to run down to the beach. It strikes Jonas as irresponsible to allow, but that's kind of a slogan for the whole island, honestly.</p><p>The house is dark and quiet when he gets home, so Jonas pads to his room as quietly as he is able.</p><p>He shrugs off his jacket as he closes the door behind him, then collapses face-first onto his bed. He'll get up in a minute to change, he tells himself. Slacks and a button up shirt are hardly comfortable sleep-wear, and he can still smell the salt of the mist soaked into him.</p><p>He closes his eyes and he hears waves.</p><p>And that's what it always is. What it's been since the island.</p><p>A certain kind of feeling, a certain sort of discomfort. Sometimes pushing insistently into his mind, then other times receding no matter how hard he concentrates, no matter how hard he tries to pull .</p><p>Tonight that wave pushes in through his exhaustion, pouring over him through the half-asleep haze and the dark of his own eyelids. He lets the white noise drown out everything else; he hears her voice beneath the surface.</p><p>***</p><p>The waves become static. The sound of moving water becomes a voice. Familiar-unfamiliar. A girl, saying his name.</p><p>Then the sound is gone.</p><p>Jonas dreams of the island. Of walking through the caves alone.</p><p>It's eerie to walk in this silence. That night on the island, it had been all of them, huddled together, pushing forward at Michael's back, laughing and chattering as they went. Stumbling over the same stones and skirting around the same pools of water.</p><p>His own footsteps echo, and he can hear dripping water somewhere in the distance. More footsteps, maybe, in the distance.</p><p>He looks up at the refracting light from faraway openings overhead. Watches it bounce and twist off of crystals or ice or whatever the sharp and pretty growths on the cavern walls are. The way it flickers on the wall reminds him of indoor pools, or of looking up at the surface of water from below.</p><p>"Are you okay?" a girl's voice asks, sounding vaguely annoyed.</p><p>Jonas startles so hard that he wakes up. He turns to look at who spoke, but all he sees is a flash of red, of teal. Bright colors in the dark, and then he is staring up at his bedroom ceiling.</p><p>***</p><p>But they all have these kinds of dreams, don't they? Shadowed figures with unrecognizable features. People who aren't people anymore, ghosts who aren't ghosts.</p><p>So Jonas tries not to think much of it.</p><p>Until the next dream, three nights later.</p><p>***</p><p>Jonas rubs at his eyes, pulling himself up off of the hard ground. For a dream, even a lucid one, his sensations feel particularly real. The dirt and pebbles against his palm, the cold air against the back of his neck.</p><p>Jonas isn't sure if the same rules of anger management apply to PTSD, but he figures what little counseling he got in juvie is better than flying completely blind. It's better not to fight it, Jonas remembers being told. If you accept it as it comes, it's easier to let it pass quickly.</p><p>If this is all just some trauma dream, Jonas guesses he should just go along with the memory it's trying to replay for him. He looks to where Ren should be, to wake him.</p><p>It isn't Ren, laying on the ground unconscious.</p><p>It's a girl.</p><p>He recognizes her. That's the first thought that crosses his mind. But he can't place where <em>from</em>, no matter how long he stares.</p><p>Her teal-dyed hair is in a ponytail, splayed out around her head like an oceanic halo. Messy, but pretty; a color he likes. She looks like she's wearing worn-out and oversized hand-me-down clothes. The black thread necklace around her throat is frayed like a shoelace, as if she's had it for far too long.</p><p>She looks a bit like Michael, Jonas realizes. They have the same nose, the same skin tone. The same jacket.</p><p>Jonas does not want to think about what this dream says about his subconscious.</p><p>He reaches out and shakes her by the shoulder, more gently than he had bothered to with Ren.</p><p>Her eyes flutter open and she looks up at him, her brown eyes misty. She seems to recognize him and her lips curl up into a soft, vaguely exhausted smile. Silently, she pulls herself up off of the ground, and Jonas follows suit.</p><p>She doesn't look half as scared as Ren had.</p><p>The silence stretches.</p><p>She blinks, and looks at him inquisitively.</p><p>"Uh… Jonas?" She asks, as if trying to prompt him.</p><p>He doesn't know what he's being prompted <em>for</em>. He can only think to repeat what he had asked Ren, when this had been real. "Are you okay?"</p><p>Her shoulders relax; she exhales as if relieved. "Yeah, I think so. Are <em>you </em>okay?"</p><p>"Confused," Jonas admits, because what harm can it do? "But I'm alright."</p><p>She squints at him. It's as if everything he does is wrong, and if he is being honest, Jonas is starting to feel a little bit indignant at this dream-apparition being so critical.</p><p>"What was the… We went up to the tower, right? That's what happens here?" He tries, as if he could appease his own subconscious by showing it that he is <em>trying </em>to play along with the dream.</p><p>"I—huh? Jonas, what?"</p><p>"Where's Ren?" Jonas asks.</p><p>She averts her eyes. Hesitates for a moment so long that it's obvious she's lying. "I don't know. We should, um… Go up and try the radio in the… Tower… To call for help. And maybe we'll find him after that? God, this is weird. Are you in a loop?"</p><p>"A… Loop?"</p><p>She looks relieved at his confusion. "Okay. This is bizarre. Are you feeling okay? No, we did that part. But it's like… Are you…"</p><p>She hesitates again, but this time sounds like she does not want to get her expectations up. Like she is trying not to sound so hopeful. Jonas just waits for her to finish a thought.</p><p>"Are you remembering things…?"</p><p>Jonas isn't sure how to answer that. This path, this <em>place</em> and this scenario. Those are his memories. But the girl and the conversation are wrong. Maybe it's just his mind processing his own recent thoughts. His conversation with Michael about dreams, and about the gaps in his memory. Maybe it's all just twisting up into this.</p><p>Her shoulders sag. "Never mind," she murmurs. "Come on. Let's go try out that radio, yeah? Up the tower."</p><p>They make their way up the path and pull themselves up the steps of the tower slowly. The quiet is unfairly uncomfortable; each step creaks under his feet like the whole building might crash down on top of them, but he knows that it won't. Despite the rust that stains his palms, he can feel how sturdy the building is with vivid clarity.</p><p>Jonas wishes that if he were going to dream about a cute girl, conversation could at least be better. That his dream would put them anywhere <em>but </em>the haunted as fuck island of his nightmares.</p><p>"You know this tower is named after a dude named Dick Harden?" Jonas says, once he has pulled himself from the ladder onto a landing. Perhaps a dick joke will smooth things over, he thinks. Truly he is the pinnacle of cleverness.</p><p>The girl is heaving herself up behind him, but when he speaks she stumbles forward with surprise. Jonas jerks toward her, but stops midway when she catches herself against the railing.</p><p>"Jesus, Al—"</p><p>"—How do you know that?" She demands, whirling towards him. "I didn't — we didn't listen to the tour. I stopped doing those <em>ages </em>ago, so how the <em>actual </em>hell do you know that right now?"</p><p>"Ren told me?"</p><p>There is a tense moment where she only stares at him. He almost thinks she will snap at him again, but eventually she just… Deflates. She lets out a long, long exhale, her expression softening as she averts her eyes.</p><p>"Right. Okay. Sorry. I probably sound crazy."</p><p>"Little bit," Jonas admits. Somehow, he can't bear to look at her like this. The disappointment etched into every inch of her body is too much. He turns away and resumes climbing the tower. "But it's whatever. Just a dream anyway."</p><p>Her voice behind him sounds utterly baffled. "What?"</p><p>"Right," Jonas says, thinking out loud. "You're not supposed to tell people in your dreams that you're dreaming. They'll always deny it. Lucid dreaming 101."</p><p>"Is this — are you <em>you?" </em>She asks, nonsensically. "Are you the ghosts? This is <em>so </em>off script."</p><p>"See, that's how I know this is a dream," Jonas points out. He is already digging in his pocket for bobby pins to pick the lock as he steps toward it. "The ghosts don’t come back into play for a while. Well, and also that you're here instead of Ren. That part's a dead giveaway."</p><p>When he drops down to his knees to pick the lock, the girl grabs him by the shoulder. "You haven't even <em>checked </em>if it's unlocked!"</p><p>There is some kind of satisfaction in being the one who is confusing his dream apparition instead of the other way around. Even if her grip is actually a bit painful.</p><p>"Why would it be unlocked this time?" Jonas asks, and tilts his head to look up at her.</p><p>His satisfaction drains away in an instant, taking any amusement he'd had with him. There's something nauseating about her expression. The bags under her eyes and the helpless furrow of her brow. She looks at him as if she's never seen him before, and that wouldn't be so strange except for that she's been speaking to him with a familiarity so visceral that he feels as if he really <em>does </em>know her. Like they're the closest of friends.</p><p>Her visible distress cuts through to his core, and there's something to that. Like she should be better at hiding it, but Jonas doesn't know where that thought comes from.</p><p>"Are you okay?" He asks again, feeling stupid when the answer is so obvious.</p><p>Her voice cracks when she tells him "<em>No</em>."</p><p>With dawning horror, Jonas realizes she looks like she's about to cry.</p><p>He doesn't know how to soothe a stranger, let alone one who isn't real to begin with. He doesn't know why he <em>wants </em>to when none of this is real.</p><p>Distantly, it occurs to Jonas that this dream has been too long, too vivid, but he pushes the thought from his mind and offers the girl a quiet, "It'll be okay."</p><p>She turns away before scrubbing at her eyes with her sleeve. She swallows thickly, and Jonas understands that she is staying quiet to keep from breaking down. So he leaves her be, gives her as much privacy as he's able when they're still side by side.</p><p>She doesn't let go of his shoulder while he picks the lock, though her grip loosens until she is just pinching the sleeve of his jacket between her index finger and thumb.</p><p>When he hears the tell-tale click and pushes the door open, she whispers: "The window over there is open." Her voice still sounds shaky, but she is trying to lighten the mood, and Jonas gives what he hopes is an appropriately consoling smile.</p><p>As Jonas stands back up, the girl's hand slides down until her palm is just resting against his arm.</p><p>He puts his hand over hers in another attempt to comfort her, but feels her whole body startle; she looks at him like he's gone insane.</p><p>He moves away. Clearly that wasn't a right answer. "Alright," he tries instead. "Let's turn off the fence and call Michael and the girls."</p><p>"Mi—huh?"</p><p>Her voice is so helplessly confused. Each time this happens, Jonas imagines it's the peak of it, but then she manages to sound <em>more </em>bewildered. <em>More </em>lost.</p><p>The phone rings; it startles him so badly that he jumps.</p><p>It rings and it rings and it rings, and eventually Jonas reaches his breaking point and throws his arm out to grab it.</p><p>He is awake in his bed, sun streaming in through his window and his cell phone under his palm, still blaring his morning alarm.</p><p>***</p><p>"Rewriting me out of our shared past, huh?" Ren says, when Jonas explains the gist of the dream over a fast-food lunch. He's sulking, and Jonas can't tell how much of it is a joke. "I see how it is. I see. <em>Replacing </em>me."</p><p>"Don't be possessive," Nona scolds, sitting beside him, and reaches over to steal the drink from in front of him. She slides it towards herself, and when Ren opens his mouth to protest, just repeats, brightly, but firmer: "<em>Don't be possessive.</em>"</p><p>"There's a possession joke in here somewhere," Ren mutters.</p><p>Jonas pushes his tray away from him so that he can rest his arms on the tabletop. Hypocritically, Ren reaches for his leftover fries without hesitation, and Jonas very pointedly turns his head to look away.</p><p>"If I ever catch you stealing from me…" he threatens, and gives Ren a moment to finish eating before looking back.</p><p>They are collectively silent for only the briefest of moments before Ren bursts out again: "And replacing me with a <em>girl </em>is what makes it the weird! Do you have repressed feelings for me, Jonas? Forbidden feelings? Because I am a taken man."</p><p>Nona gives Jonas an unbothered nod, as if offering him permission of some kind. "Please take him."</p><p>Ren frowns. "Please be possessive. Like, just a little bit."</p><p>Jonas laughs, and very pointedly refrains from mentioning that if <em>anything</em>, the girl had looked like Michael. Had worn his jacket, even. Maybe there really is something to the whole repressed crush theory.</p><p>"Maybe you just…" Nona says, but hesitates. "Like, maybe you subconsciously wanted to, like, be more of the hero. You know? So you dreamed about this version of the night where you get to be a, um, knight in shining armor to someone. No offense."</p><p>"I think I was a perfectly fine damsel in distress," Ren grumbles.</p><p>"I meant no offense to <em>Jonas</em>."</p><p>"Well <em>I </em>think he just wanted me to be cuter."</p><p>"Don't we all."</p><p>They occupy each other, bickering or flirting or both, and Jonas stares out the window as if he expects to see a passing crowd. But Camena is small. The streets are empty.</p><p>Westedge was empty too, so he doesn't understand how this feeling can be so stark.</p><p>***</p><p>They are walking through the forest, this time. He and the girl.</p><p>It's almost nice. Almost pleasant to smell the trees and feel the cold wind pushing through his jacket. The comfort of knowing this is just a dream makes it much less terrifying than the real night had been. Even if he sees ghosts, he knows they are just memories.</p><p>If the last dream was anything to go on, maybe he won't see any at all.</p><p>The girl is walking ahead of him, and she shivers, hands shoved into her pockets and the wind mussing her hair up even more. Funny, Jonas thinks, that his subconscious would give her these details. Keeping a casual pace behind her, he can make out the brown roots of her hair against the nape of her neck. He watches her ponytail bounce with every step.</p><p>His face flushes when she catches him, glancing over her shoulder with concern. "You doing okay?"</p><p>"Yeah," Jonas says. "I'm alright, I think. You?"</p><p>"Eh. Good as possible, given the circumstances." After a pause, she presses, "You've been kind of quiet."</p><p>"Have I?"</p><p>The dream is giving him back story. That's not fair. Aren't lucid dreams supposed to give you some modicum of control over the situation? He just feels awake, but not in control.</p><p>"I mean, for a couple minutes? Like, we were just talking, and then… I don't know. You stopped. It scared me, I thought you were…"</p><p>When it becomes obvious she isn't going to finish the thought, Jonas tries to finish for her. "Possessed?"</p><p>She stops walking so suddenly that Jonas nearly walks into her. She whirls on him, her body tense like she's about to call down a storm, about to yell at him, but she deflates when she meets his eyes.</p><p>"This again…?" She asks.</p><p>Jonas doesn't know what to say. He looks around and tries to remember this part of the night. Through the forest, to the waystation. He and Ren had gone to get Nona, but they had ran into Michael on the way, and then…</p><p>"You haven't seen anyone get possessed yet, Jonas," she points out, a gentle reminder. Like kindly pointing out something he's forgotten.<br/>
<br/>
"Soon, though?" Jonas asks, dryly. He'd rather not relive the memory; seeing Nona like that was haunting. Seeing <em>anyone </em>like that is haunting. All glowing-red-eyes and too-many-voices. And the shadows that loom, barely visible, flickering…</p><p>He was trying to play it casual, but he shivers at the thought.</p><p>"Soon," she confirms, but draws the word out like she does not want to concede the answer to him. Her eyes are narrowed with suspicion.</p><p>She turns and begins walking again. Jonas trails after her.</p><p>"So, uh. Remind me again what your name is?" Jonas asks. He realizes that it is not at all smooth.</p><p>Trying to read her expression hasn't exactly been illuminating. He still wishes he could try.</p><p>But she doesn't stop to turn on him again. He sees her head dip back, as if staring up at the stars. Her hair fans against her jacket, and he isn't sure which of the two he wants to touch more. "You don't know who I am?"</p><p>"I'm supposed to, huh?"</p><p>At least this manages to draw a light laugh from her. "Hard to say. But I think I get it."</p><p>"Care to explain? Share with the class?"</p><p>She stops walking. He expects her to turn to him, but she doesn’t. Jonas watches her slide one foot further back and drop her weight lower. He doesn't have time to ask what she's doing before she starts sprinting; she jumps over a canyon, for just a moment flying over the gap.</p><p>She's a girl in the sky, in the stars. Until she lands hard on the other side, falling onto her knees as she scrambles to keep her limbs all on solid ground.</p><p>Then, like nothing happened, she bounces back up. Now, with this space between them, she looks back his way.</p><p>"I don't think I want to explain," she says, her voice louder in case the wind won't carry it. But it does; the sound of her is clear despite the distance. "I don't think you'd let it be."</p><p>"Let <em>what</em> be, Alex?" He calls back to her without thinking, without noticing until a moment too late.</p><p>She doesn't look surprised until he does, like a chain reaction.</p><p>The slip seems to change her mind. She laughs, then steps back to the ledge and sits down, swinging her legs over the side of it. She gestures for Jonas to sit on his side.</p><p>He sits down in the dirt, and wonders if they could reach each other if they stretched out their legs. He doesn't think so. The gap was short enough to jump, but barely. Certainly long enough that it never would have occurred to Jonas to jump it if he hadn't just watched her do it.</p><p>He's never been afraid of heights in particular, but the thought persists when he is this close to a ledge: accidents happen.</p><p>His pulse is still thrumming with second-hand nerves for her. His heart is a bird rebelling against its cage, rattling against his ribs.</p><p>"You don't know who I am, do you?" She asks, staring at him evenly.</p><p>He shakes his head, but knows this isn't the first time her name has found its way into his mind. "I thought I didn't?"</p><p>"I <em>am</em> Alex," she clarifies. "But you've never met me before, right? You don't… Know me. Do you?"</p><p>"Just the other nights. Earlier in the night. The other dreams."</p><p>She winces, like something in this pains her. But it doesn't seem to be the same part she questions, because when she sounds unbothered when she asks, "You still think you're dreaming?"</p><p>He refuses to dignify it with an answer. Mostly because he's feeling less and less sure of it. It's <em>so</em> vivid. The stars, the wind, the dirt.</p><p>Her. Her presence, pressing into all of his senses, taking over his awareness. Her voice and her hair and her face, all of them so visceral to him. They imprint in his memory in a way that people in dreams never do, whether they're people he's really met or just apparitions.</p><p>Alex sighs, and this time when her shoulders sag it seems to be with guilt. Her eyes drop down to her lap. "If I can't keep from calling you here, I probably at least owe you the truth. But I feel like I'll go crazy if I don't ask my questions first. No, maybe my questions <em>are</em> why you're here."</p><p>"Questions like what?"</p><p>"Like about tonight. Your version of tonight."</p><p>Jonas leans back on his arms, ignoring the pebbles that dig into his palms and watching the stars. "Pretty typical haunted island story. Dumb teens enter. Ghosts ensue. Dumb teens leave."</p><p>"Which dumb teens?"</p><p>"Me and Ren. Met up with Michael and Clarissa and Nona."</p><p>She is quiet so long that Jonas has to look back down to her. Alex has her hands clasped in her lap, eyes staring down at them intently.</p><p>"Michael, huh?" She murmurs, but Jonas gets the impression she is talking to herself.</p><p>He gives her a moment, and it stretches on and on. She does not want to be the one to end it. Does not want to move on from whatever thought she is stuck on.</p><p>Eventually, finally, she asks, "How did you get off the island? How did the night <em>end </em>for you?"</p><p>He tries to remember for her. Tries to be sincere and think back on what <em>exactly </em>happened when they went into the bomb shelter. Each one of them had refused to be left behind. They had gone in together, and then Ren had used that radio again, and then…</p><p>"I don't remember," Jonas mutters, frustrated.</p><p>"Must have closed the rift, though." Her gaze slices to him just long enough to see him nod. "From the inside. But you all went home safe, right? Outside of it. How?"</p><p>The radio, and a hole in the world, and then… And then…</p><p>He winces at the sudden ache in his skull. Growing pains of a widening void, devouring everything at its edges.</p><p>Alex says: "I can tell you about tonight. The first version of tonight. The real version of tonight."</p><p>Jonas can only nod, fighting back his headache.</p><p>***</p><p>Her story goes like this:</p><p>A submarine full of people sank and it wasn't their fault. A woman was trapped and it wasn't her fault.</p><p>A group of stupid kids came to a haunted island and it wasn't their fault. A girl was trapped and it wasn't her fault.</p><p>But it <em>was</em> her choice, and it gave the others reprieve. You seal up a sacrifice to save a sinking ship. That's how it goes. How it will always go, how it has always gone.</p><p>So now, inside a rift, time repeats. It doesn't have to, but it has to. She cannot explain this part very well. It is and is not her fault. The night plays out in every way that it could ever play out. Dolls in a dollhouse, ghosts on an island.</p><p>Alex plays with dolls, and she plays with time, and she breaks this reality down piece by piece by tiny piece. There's no true exit from a maze built inside a locked room, but she presses her voice into radio waves and presses those waves into other realities, and saves as many other people as she can from this with her voice alone.</p><p>You seal up a sacrifice to save a sinking ship. That's how it goes. How it will always go, how it has always gone. Except for when it doesn't. Except for when a group of stupid kids don't come to the island.</p><p>But someone has to warn them.</p><p>It was worth it, Alex tells him. Like she's repeating herself, like she's talking to the ghosts. But with her eyes set dead on Jonas's face and a crushing sincerity in her eyes. <em>It's worth it.</em></p><p>***</p><p>Jonas shivers.</p><p>The gap between them feels insurmountable, now. Cliff-side to cliff-side. The one brave enough to jump, and him.</p><p>"It used to just be the furniture," Alex tells him. "After that it was whole rooms. And now, you."</p><p>Jonas does not know how much of this he believes. He <em>wants </em>to believe all of it, and his tolerance for the absurd, for the supernatural, is certainly higher after what he's been through. What he remembers having been through.</p><p>But anyone would hesitate at a story like that. Anyone would take "I'm a person you knew, retroactively written out of the world" with a grain of salt.</p><p>Even if he knew her name. Even if there are pangs of familiarity in all the unfamiliar things she does.</p><p>Dreams can feel real until the moment you wake up, Jonas tells himself, as firmly as he can.</p><p>"Sorry," Alex offers. "I want to keep you out of this. But I'm not exactly… Doing it on purpose."</p><p>Jonas is speaking before he even processes the thought. "Maybe I can help you."</p><p>Her resignation shapes itself into condescension; she rolls her eyes. "That's sweet, but impossible."</p><p>"If you've been doing this for so long, working so hard just to save other Alexes, why would you draw the line before saving yourself? Why does all your determination just <em>stop there</em>?"</p><p>"It just… It just does. I've been doing this long enough to know how it works."</p><p>"If you can pull things from the past, what about pulling, I don't know — yourself?"</p><p>"That's stupid."</p><p>"But you can't just <em>give up </em>on getting out."</p><p>"I don't <em>want</em> to get out."</p><p>The rest of his words die in his throat. The surge of idiotic enthusiasm and hope fizzles out. "What — why? Why not?"</p><p>Alex stands up, dusting off her pants, but Jonas thinks it's just an excuse not to look at him. "Because the world will rewrite itself again. I'd get put back in, retroactively."</p><p>Jonas rises too, and assesses the gap between them. He looks down at the fall, at the distant ground below. Then back to Alex. "Why would that be bad?"</p><p>She hesitates. Rubs her arm with one hand before adjusting her sleeves.</p><p>"Alex," he prompts, gently.</p><p>He's surprised it works.</p><p>"I like your world better as it is," she says. "For one. A world where I never… Where Michael…" She aborts the thought and shakes her head. "Besides, if I change things again, again, again<em>, again, </em>then what? What happens to all the Alexes that don't get my message? All the Rens and Jonases and Nonas and Clarissas that I could have helped?"</p><p>"This?" Jonas asks, though he still doesn't understand the whole concept, really. "They do this. And they make it out the same way, and someone else is saved. Would it be that bad to let other Alexes worry about themselves and you worry about you?"</p><p>"<em>Yes</em>, it would be that bad. Why should more than one of us have to go through this?"</p><p>"How many of you are there?"</p><p>She frowns. "I don't… Know, exactly. I think it's infinite. It's probably infinite."</p><p>"You can't be responsible for all of them."</p><p>She looks offended. "I can too."</p><p>"You shouldn't have to be, though."</p><p>"No, no one should <em>have </em>to be."</p><p>Jonas tries to change tactics. "What about in the worlds with Alexes who were saved? Worlds where we never came and opened the rift at all? Doesn't that just mean that someone else will, later?"</p><p>This gives her pause. Her brow knits like she'd never considered it before. "I… Not necessarily, but probably…?"</p><p>"You're not responsible for <em>everyone</em>. If it's a sinking ship in each world, you can let someone from each world deal with it themselves. Not just you."</p><p>He hardly knows what he's arguing for, but if it's just a dream, is there any harm in pushing for optimism? In trying to see a happier ending?</p><p>Alex turns her body away as if she could reject the idea by getting him out of her sight. But Jonas sees the way she keeps her eyes on him, watching him sidelong.</p><p>Jonas takes a couple steps back, then runs.</p><p>Jumping the gap is exhilarating. For fleeting seconds he is in the air, reckless over a fall that could kill him. But she already made the jump. He'd seen her do it, seen her <em>make </em>it. It's not so scary, he tells himself; the bird in his chest wants to stretch its wings.</p><p>He lands hard, stumbling towards Alex where she's turned back towards him with nervously raised arms. Like the jump was nothing for her, but she is afraid to see him do it.</p><p>He doesn't crash into her completely, but falls the extra step closer and feels her hands come to grip him by the shoulders, steadying.</p><p>"Stupid," she says, fondly.</p><p>He straightens up, but when she doesn't let go, Jonas reflexively touches her in return. He sets his hands on her waist loosely, ready to pull away if he's supposed to. Her eyes dart away from him, but then back. She scans his face, searching.</p><p>Dreams feel real until you wake up, Jonas reminds himself.</p><p>He's an idiot. There is a very real possibility that Nona is right — that this is just his mind, desperate to play hero on a night he felt helpless. Dreaming up some pretty girl to rescue, and making him think it's real.</p><p>But if this is real, he thinks.</p><p>If this is real, and she is real, and she can <em>be </em>real, outside of this place…</p><p>He wants to kiss her, which is objectively strange, he knows. A couple stilted conversations is all they have. No <em>shared </em>memories.</p><p>That isn't even what stops him.</p><p>What stops him is the thought that: it would be kind of messed up to do that to someone. To see that someone needs your help, and make it come with conditions, with expectations.</p><p>When Alex steps away from him, she nearly trips over her own feet, laughing nervously as Jonas holds on just a moment longer to make sure she's steady. Then he pulls away, hands to himself.</p><p>He wasn't leaning closer, Jonas tells himself. He wasn't. That would be stupid.</p><p>"Oh God, because for you, we're not…" She says, clearly to herself more than him. She trails off with a disbelieving laugh.</p><p>He raises an eyebrow at her, but she doesn't explain.</p><p>"Nothing," she says, her face flushing. It's the first time he's seen her flustered, not with fear or distress but with red cheeks and jittery fingers that flex at her sides. "Nothing! Let's, um… Carry on! Compare notes until you poof away and leave me with my Jonas."</p><p>"Your Jonas," he repeats.</p><p>She whirls away, walking quickly, but it's easy to keep pace. "You know what I mean. Loop Jonas. You're… Actually, I guess you kind of <em>are </em>the original <em>my</em> Jonas. In a way. But that's gonna get confusing fast since you don't even remember that. So for now you're just—"</p><p>"—Jonas."</p><p>"Right."</p><p>This time nothing startles Jonas awake. He doesn't know why; the world goes to static and jumps and jolts around him. Different than it had before. Like scratches on a vinyl record, like an out-of-signal satellite channel, but none of it scares him. Not really.</p><p>Not with Alex at his side, taking the lead in a play she's acted in a thousand times before.</p><p>***</p><p>It still feels real in the morning. It feels real in the morning and that's — infuriating, in a way, because he doesn't have <em>anything </em>he can do to <em>check</em>. There's no checklist for this, no proof or evidence he can dig up. He only has his gut feeling.</p><p>The next time it happens, Jonas is not even asleep.</p><p>He is outside at the tables behind the cafeteria. It's cold out, but he'd still rather be outside where the crowds are thinner, and Nona and Ren are nice enough to humor him today without much complaint.</p><p>At Ren's insistence the three of them are "huddling for warmth like penguins." Jonas is not sure why he has to be in the middle, why Nona and Ren are each nearly sitting on one of his thighs, but whatever. He'll take it as a blessing, even with the ever-present shadow of disbelief that he has <em>friends </em>now.</p><p>It's sunny, and it's a little cold still, and he feels wide awake and in the moment.</p><p>The next moment, it's all gone.</p><p>His stomach lurches as the scenery around him changes in the literal blink of an eye. The most disorienting part is the horizon-line of the sea; he had been sitting and now he is standing without having moved. His mind reels to realign his vision. The railing, and the ocean, and the dark, dark sky.</p><p>The next thing he notices is the crackling of the bonfire, and this only worsens his nausea. It's in the middle of the parking lot, as if it's been copy and pasted from the beach onto a new scene. It doesn't belong; it's disorienting to see it there. The whole night is lilac when it should be an eerie blue-green, the color of the sea in the distance.</p><p>He looks around, eyes passing over Ren, Clarissa, and Nona, all looking tense as they stand around the fire.</p><p>He realizes that Clarissa is speaking, her voice absolutely <em>venomous</em>.</p><p>"It has to be her fault, of course it's her fault. There's no other way this story goes."</p><p>Jonas lands his gaze on Alex and almost wishes he hadn't. She is curled in on herself, shoulders hunched and tense, her hands clenched in fists over her thighs. Her head is bowed and her expression, God, that's what kills him. She looks so tired. She looks so completely resigned as she takes in a shaky inhale.</p><p>"She creates chaos, she's a storm chaser," Clarissa continues, her voice piercing, glare set harsh wherever she looks.</p><p>Alex just stays quiet. She leans against the railing and stares at the ground.</p><p>"No, come on Clarissa," Nona says, stepping forward, "let's not do this right now."</p><p>Clarissa ignores her, and her eyes land on Jonas. He flinches, despite himself. He's always known she could be intimidating, sure, but he'd never been the target of it before. It's jarring, how icy her eyes are, when they've only ever looked at him with kindness.</p><p>"You're gonna learn, Jonas, I swear to god—the town looks at her like she has a red letter tattooed on her frickin' forehead. And the giant, lit-up, Christmas tree reason why is that Michael is dead because of her! <em>Because of her</em>. Like, do you understand who you're living with?"</p><p>Jonas's mind reels.</p><p>"Why—how did Michael die?" Jonas asks.</p><p>There is a tangible pause all around him. Alex's head snaps up to look at him.</p><p>The others don't seem as perturbed, but there is a beat of silence, just one awkward moment as if each of them need a moment to process the question. Or that he would ask it.</p><p>Clarissa recovers first; she starts pacing and Jonas can see the furious energy radiating out of her. It tightens the coil in his stomach to watch.</p><p>"Michael was gonna leave town! He was free, he was outta here, until <em>this one</em> convinced him to take her swimming for one last — God knows what! And he drowned! He drowned in Horn Lake while <em>this one</em> could barely flap her arms!"</p><p>"Clarissa," Nona warns her.</p><p>"Come on, Clarissa," Ren tries, too.</p><p>Jonas sees Alex shudder, sees her take in another deep, trembling breath.</p><p>"Just ignore her," Jonas offers, stepping closer to her. He is kind of reassuring himself when he says, "Michael is fine."</p><p>Another steadying breath. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. He's fine in the world I'm ripping you out of. Sorry, I didn't mean to—" Her voice sounds syrupy, the sort of thick that comes with being about to cry. "—Didn't <em>want </em>to bring you to this, I didn't want you to see this part, I—"</p><p>He's never heard her ramble like this, even when she was distressed, before. "Alex, it's okay. Whatever happened, you're okay, and I'm okay, and I want to help you."</p><p>Clarissa is still talking, quiet but vehement, more to Nona and Ren than the rest of them. Like she's realized Jonas isn't paying her any attention and she's given up on him. Alex's eyes cut in her direction before she looks back to Jonas.</p><p>"I told you," she reminds him desperately, "I don't want your help. I can't kill Michael again."</p><p>The world turns to static. The ghosts are talking, through Clarissa now, with her eyes glowing red, but it's at the edge of Jonas's sight. He hears her, her voice pervasive like it's coming through a loudspeaker, through a radio.</p><p>He couldn't care less about it. He steps closer to Alex, wrapping his arms around her and feeling her return the embrace with a shudder like she's never been hugged before.</p><p>The world jerks, skips tracks around them. It's quiet. His head feels clearer, suddenly. Like waking up, only when Jonas looks around he is still in the dream.</p><p>The sky has gone back to being stained by the color of the sea; the bonfire is gone and so are the others. It's just them, alone in the parking lot, holding onto each other.</p><p>"We have to get the radios," Alex murmurs, her face pressed into his chest. He can feel her breath blooming against his skin through his shirt.</p><p>"In a minute," he says.</p><p>Jonas brings one hand up to pet her hair, carefully avoiding the knots tangled in by the wind. She doesn't tense or lean away from it. She just relaxes against him like she's melting, like she's exhausted and has never been given the chance to rest in her whole life. He has to steady himself against her weight, but it's a comfort to feel it.</p><p>"I didn't want to pull you in for this part," Alex repeats.</p><p>"Not so sure about that."</p><p>She sighs. "… Maybe."</p><p>Eventually, Alex pulls away, and eventually, Jonas wakes up.</p><p>***</p><p>The nausea pulses through him again when he does, his vision spinning as the horizon-line shifts.</p><p>He is sitting at the tables behind the cafeteria. Ren and Nona are still halfway on his lap from either side, chattering between themselves about something trivial; a movie they watched last night, he thinks. The same thing they'd been talking about a second ago.</p><p>"Did I just… Fall asleep?" Jonas asks, only realizing he's interrupted Ren mid-sentence after the words have left his mouth.</p><p>Ren doesn't seem bothered. He just sounds sympathetic. "Didn't get enough sleep last night?"</p><p>"God, I wish I'd gone to bed earlier too," Nona says, nodding with understanding.</p><p>"No, I mean… Just now, I was dreaming."</p><p>"Well, you're sitting upright, and you're still holding your water, sooo… No, I don't think you passed out unless it was for, like, a half a second."</p><p>"If you really need a powernap, you can go to the nurse's office. She'll let you lay down if you just say you have a stomach ache."</p><p>"No, that's not…" Jonas trails off. He squirms in place until the other two move. "I need to talk to Michael."</p><p>He knows this conversation doesn't have connecting dots for them to follow; he can read the confusion on both their faces. He pushes up from the table and grabs his backpack.</p><p>"Text him?" Ren suggests.</p><p>"Yeah," Jonas says. His feet are already carrying him away at a hurried pace; if he cuts through the field and public park, he can catch the bus without any teachers bothering him.</p><p>"Are you skipping class?" Nona calls after him.</p><p>"I need to talk to Michael," Jonas calls back again, as if this is sufficient explanation, and he is walking so quickly that they don't get the chance to ask more questions.</p><p>***</p><p>Jonas isn't sure how he knows the way to Michael's house.</p><p>He texts first — he's not a <em>monster</em>. But he was probably supposed to wait for some kind of confirmation beyond Michael's, "Just chilling at home today, what's up?" before heading over.</p><p>He's never been to Michael's house before.</p><p>He's never been, but for some reason his mind tells him the landmarks. Bus stop, oak tree with a knot that looks like a door at its base, sidewalk in the shade with moss growing in the cracks. Blue house, blue house, white house, home.</p><p>Or, no. <em>Michael's</em> home.</p><p>Bedroom in the attic. Sunlight streaming in through the window. Dust catching light and creaky footsteps from downstairs. How does he know that?</p><p>Jonas knocks, and tries to think of an excuse for why he, a high schooler who should presumably be in class right now, is here to see Michael, who is not expecting him. Thankfully, Michael is the one to answer the door. His parents must be at work.</p><p>"Hey," Jonas blurts out. His adrenaline is still pumping, even after the bus ride and walk to get her. It's all excess energy with no outlet.</p><p>Michael just stares at him owlishly. "Hey. You have a half day or something?"</p><p>"The lake," Jonas says, cutting straight to the chase, despite the absurdity of having this conversation from the doorway. "That you told me about?"</p><p>"What about it?"</p><p>Finally, far too many steps into what he's doing, Jonas hits a moment of hesitation. He's a crazy person. He <em>feels </em>like a crazy person. Michael is looking at him like he's a crazy person. With patience and compassion, yes, but that doesn't change that Jonas is <em>clearly </em>a crazy person.</p><p>The dreams don't feel like dreams. The question nags at the back of his mind: how did they close the rift from inside it and all end up back out of it again? Why can't he remember? Why can't Michael?</p><p>Jonas rushes out, before he can get cold feet about it: "Was it called Horn Lake?"</p><p>Michael gives an easy nod, but his answer comes out as a question. "Yeah, that's the one? You know it?"</p><p>"Never heard of it," Jonas says.</p><p>Michael laughs like he thinks Jonas is telling a joke. The sound of it hangs over them awkwardly as Jonas doesn't join in, and Michael's smile slips away.</p><p>"Come inside," he says, and Jonas obeys.</p><p>***</p><p>Jonas freezes up in the doorway to Michael's room. He <em>knows </em>this room. He knows it. The beam of sunlight that cuts through the middle of the room in a diagonal slash, lighting up sparkles and specks. The bed, the unnerving give of the fourth floorboard under his foot, the desk drawer that won't quite close all the way. <em>Every </em>part of it is familiar to him.</p><p>Michael's jacket is draped over the chair, and the older boy drops to sit, nodding towards his bed.</p><p>"Make yourself at home."</p><p>Jonas doesn't know how to articulate that he already feels at home. He nods robotically and sits down at the edge of the bed. He wants to lay down, the adrenaline finally draining from him like a burst dam.</p><p>He knows this house. He knows this room.</p><p>"Have you had any more of those dreams?" Jonas asks. He should feel more out of place than he does. He can't stop staring at that red jacket.</p><p>"What, about drowning?" Michael asks, and laughs lightly. "No, uh, blessedly few."</p><p>"No," Jonas says. He hesitates. It feels like there is a needle in his stomach, poking him from the inside. "Dreams with Alex in them."</p><p>Michael's expression goes tight. He leans back in his seat and it cracks at the joints. For a long moment — much too long for someone simply confused — Michael keeps his mouth shut. Deciding how to answer, but giving himself away by taking so long.</p><p>"That means yes," Jonas points out, before Michael can try to claim otherwise.</p><p>"Yeah," the older boy admits. "Just… Not often? Every now and then."</p><p>"What sort of dreams?" Jonas presses.</p><p>"I don't know. Pretty regular stuff. Days at the beach. Days at home."</p><p>The warm of the room makes the silence comfortable. More comfortable than it should be. Jonas doesn't know what to ask, what to say, he just knows that Alex said she didn't want out of that night, that <em>endless </em>night because she didn't want to kill Michael again.</p><p>But he can't accept that. He can't fathom never resting, never <em>not </em>being stuck in the worst night of his life. In the dark and the cold, playing with dolls who do and say the same things again and again.</p><p>Not when he can compare it to this. A cold day that still warms up a cozy bedroom in the attic, brightly lit from the window alone. Dusty, and awkwardly quiet, maybe, but nice.</p><p>Michael is watching him, not nervously, but with a curiosity. He is slouched back comfortably in his chair, and Jonas knows they're not that close, but he <em>gets </em>it.</p><p>There has to be a way to keep them both. His brow furrows, mind trying to go over everything he knows, but there isn't much. He replays the things Alex has said, the way she's described what she does.</p><p>"When do you see her?" Michael asks, finally.</p><p>"When for me or when for her?"</p><p>The question doesn't confuse Michael; that means something. "Both, I guess."</p><p>"For me it used to just be dreams at night. But not… Always. And for her it's… That night on the island. Every time."</p><p>But not for Michael. Because in Alex's version of that night, Michael was already…</p><p>Jonas shivers and looks out the window.</p><p>"I'm trying to talk her into it," Michael says tentatively.</p><p>"Into what?"</p><p>"Leaving. Coming home."</p><p>Jonas's head snaps back to look at Michael, but now it's the older boy refusing to meet his eyes. Michael wrings his hands in his lap.</p><p>"She can't," Jonas tests.</p><p>Can't? Or won't?</p><p>"Sometimes I get these — memories?" Michael says, but Jonas can tell it's not quite a change in subject. "Not full memories. Not like visions or words, for the most part, but just an… itch. Like when you smell something familiar or get really sudden and visceral but totally vague déjà vu."</p><p>Like radio waves, Jonas thinks. An awareness pushed into him through the waves, through time. A signal that's hard to tune into focus.</p><p>"You know why I decided to take a gap year?" Michael asks.</p><p>Jonas shakes his head.</p><p>Very simply, Michael shrugs. "I couldn't decide. I couldn't decide what to do, so I put off the decision. I thought I wanted one thing, and you know? Probably I still do. But I can come back to it. I can wait until the decision is less scary, just for a little."</p><p>"How do you…" Jonas swallows thickly. "Aren't you afraid?"</p><p>Of what happens when Alex leaves. Of staying in stasis. Of dying?</p><p>Jonas realizes that with Michael's way of skirting subjects, his question might read wrong.</p><p>Michael spins in his seat. Trying to alleviate tension in the room, or maybe just moving anxiously, himself. Jonas isn't sure, but he watches him wince as he faces the sunlight, then squint and turn back around. He won't quite look Jonas in the eyes.</p><p>"I've missed Alex for years. Since before I knew who she was, and since way before the island. It would be worth it."</p><p>But that's what she'll say too, Jonas thinks. It's worth it. It's worth it.</p><p>***</p><p><br/>
He is walking through the radio communications school with Alex. This was earlier in the night than the last memory, but Jonas supposes time flows differently in the rift. It moves at a different speed, and it loops, and he has come in and out of her not-quite-reality at different points in different loops.</p><p>It's strange to think about his own consciousness being within the rift. Coming and going like there's a door being opened and closed.</p><p>But there is, isn't there? Alex has the key, red and plastic, shoved in her pocket like nothing.</p><p>She is walking down the steps in front of him, and Jonas finds himself mesmerized again by her swaying ponytail. It's embarrassingly easy to forget what he'd been thinking about.</p><p>Instead he remembers the last time she pulled him here, when he had run his hands through her hair, and he reaches out before thinking. His hands touch the ends of her ponytail; his fingertips brush against the nape of her neck, and Alex gasps loudly.</p><p>She turns to face him, eyes wide and both her hands flying up to clasp over the back of her neck as if it still needs protecting. "Jesus Christ, you startled me."</p><p>Jonas laughs, and is relieved that this doesn't offend her. She relaxes.</p><p>"Welcome back to hell," she says, then adds, sing-song: "Hands to yourself, please."</p><p>"You can tell it's me?"</p><p>"You're always Jonas. But one of you is playing by different rules."</p><p>"What does that mean?"</p><p>"Well. Nothing. We just — I know the conversations we usually have here. I know what's on his mind and the stuff about you that's a little different."</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>Jonas cannot remember what he and Ren had been talking about, here. Nona, probably. Most moments that Ren wasn't in a blind panic had been spent talking about Nona.</p><p>Alex looks evasive. She shoves her hands in her pockets and turns away from him, starting back down the steps.</p><p>Jonas hums curiously, following behind her, but she doesn't seem to want to elaborate. He doesn't make her. Not that it's an act of benevolence when what he <em>does </em>want to make her talk about is worse.</p><p>"What happened to Michael?"</p><p>She laughs, but it's a bitter and weary sound. He hates it, guilt washing over him for eliciting it from her. But he needs to know.</p><p>"Curious about the details? Clarissa covered them pretty well."</p><p>"He drowned when you two went swimming. Because he was… Leaving."</p><p>She might be nodding, or it might just be the weight of her steps; Jonas can't tell from behind her.</p><p>"For college." She says.</p><p>"So tell him not to go."</p><p>She waits for him to step beside her before she starts down the hall ahead of them. Looks up at him, tilting her head.</p><p>"Yeah, I've… Seen that outcome. It's nice. But it's also, like… Forcing someone not to live their life how they want to. Forcing them to live out their crappy small town days that they hate. And yeah, obviously it's better than <em>dying, </em>but it's still… How do you do that to someone? How do you take someone asking you for your blessing so they can do what they want and then you tell them <em>no?</em>"</p><p>Jonas is still mulling over how to answer when Alex tilts her head to look up at him.</p><p>"It doesn't matter anyway. So there are… Those traces of me in his memories, sure. Think of it like radiation poisoning. But that doesn't mean I'm getting out of here."</p><p>"You're not poison, Alex."</p><p>She only lets out a "Hm," in response.</p><p>Jonas gives her a moment, letting the subject drop for now.</p><p>"Why just us?" He asks. "Why just me and Michael? Or is Ren just surprisingly good at keeping secrets for no reason?"</p><p>Alex brings her hands up, gesturing in the air with wiggling fingers, as if trying to mime something that Jonas can't comprehend. "It's like… Hard. It's hard."</p><p>"But it's easy to pull me and Michael here?"</p><p>"Easy enough to have done it on accident at first," Alex says. She's gesturing again, and Jonas watches her hands with complete interest but absolutely zero comprehension. "I think it's like… An overflow."</p><p>"An overflow," he repeats.</p><p>"Yeah, like… Everything I do here… I didn't really start doing it consciously. So I think it's like pouring into a cup. Eventually the cup overflows, and things just <em>happen</em>."</p><p>"And then?"</p><p>Her shoulders sag and her gaze drops to her feet as they walk. She kicks a small stone out of the way and into rubble. "And then I get spoiled. I want to see you and know how you're doing."</p><p>Jonas <em>knows </em>that she means both of them. Himself and Michael. He <em>knows </em>she isn't just talking about him. He still feels his cheeks growing warm.</p><p>"But not Ren?" He tries again.</p><p>"I'm not as worried about Ren," she says easily, and all the traces of shame are gone from her body. She shrugs. "I imagine… That he's doing fine. That he's… Better off, you know? Not — not because we aren't best friends, or like I'm insecure about that, but like… You know. He's got a good family and a good girlfriend, and he's got other friends."</p><p>"He dropped them all as soon as I showed up," Jonas tells her.</p><p>She startles. "What? Why?"</p><p>This time Jonas shrugs. He tries to sound just as matter-of-fact about it. "Because he was lonely without his best friend around. Even if he doesn't know it."</p><p>Alex concedes to a small smile, but Jonas can't look at it for too long, knowing he'll see bitterness beneath the surface.</p><p>"Well. Now he's got you."</p><p>"Michael's got a good family and a good girlfriend, too," Jonas points out.</p><p>"Debatable on both counts."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>"Mm. No, I'm just being petty. Debatable on <em>one </em>count. Clarissa's great, especially when she doesn't hate me."</p><p><br/>
She laughs lightly, and Jonas humors her by laughing too.</p><p>He hesitates for a long moment before asking, "What about me?"</p><p>"Well," Alex says, stalling for time. She shoves her hands in her pockets and tilts her head from side to side, like she's trying to come up with a good answer on the spot. "You know. You're… I was just worried. New kid. Other… Stuff."</p><p>Dead mom, she means. Delinquent, she means.</p><p>"You know, being trapped for eternity on a haunted island ranks, uh, way more worrisome than anything we're dealing with. We're all fine."</p><p>"Eh, I dunno. High school and hell, not so different."</p><p>"Very profound."</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>"But there <em>is</em> a really big flaw in your whole self-sacrificial <em>thing.</em>"</p><p>Alex sighs, preemptively tired of the whole conversation. "Yeah?"</p><p>"You don't want to open the rift and leave — even though you could, right?"</p><p>She doesn't answer for too long. It's the same thing Michael does, and it doesn't work.</p><p>"That means yes," Jonas points out, then continues. "Your whole thing is that you'd have to choose between killing Michael — which, yeah, admittedly, pretty bad. Or crushing his dreams, stifling his future, caged bird metaphor, etcetera. Yeah?"</p><p>She smacks him in the arm, looking sulky, but still nods. Jonas kind of gets it. If he took on the eternal karmic destiny of everyone he loved, he'd probably be pretty annoyed by jokes about it, too.</p><p>"But you know that he's taking a gap year in my reality, right? He must have mentioned that. You must have figured that out since <em>I know him</em>, which means he's still in Camena."</p><p>Alex stops walking.</p><p>When he's just a few steps ahead, Jonas turns to face her. He watches her face scrunch up, looking at him like she's doing mental math.</p><p>"So you can read that one of two ways," Jonas says, trying to push her along the train of thought. "Either that you aren't holding him back, since he's doing that himself. Or that — it doesn't really matter. Not all decisions have to be <em>permanent, </em>Alex."</p><p>Alex looks down at her hands. She is holding them up as if she'd been carrying something and is only just now realizing it's gone. He watches her fingers open and close, watches her brow furrow and her frown deepen and deepen.</p><p>"But…"</p><p>He waits for a long time, trying to give her the chance to articulate herself.</p><p>She just keeps looking at her hands. Keeps trying to solve something in her head.</p><p>He wakes up before she finds her words. All he can do is hope that she can wrap her head around his.</p><p>Not all decisions are permanent.</p><p>***</p><p>He doesn't see her for weeks.</p><p>***</p><p>But Michael does.</p><p>***</p><p>"I'm pretty good at swimming, actually?" Michael tells him, sitting up on the brick pony-wall that juts out from the high school, bordering the cement path up to the front gate from the grass along the classroom windows.</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>Jonas hoists himself up to sit beside him, feeling his palms scrape against the rough surface.</p><p>Michael nods. "Yep. That's what makes it scary. I'm good at swimming. Alex says she's the one who was bad at it. I guess that kind of thing can just happen to anyone, you know? Just bad luck."</p><p>It's strange to talk to someone about their own death that never happened. But Michael faces it with a calm, level-head.</p><p>Jonas thumbs over the cigarette pack in his pocket. He can't bring himself to smoke so close to the front door of the school. Even if it is a Saturday. He doesn't get cravings that often, but the thick fog and grey skies of the day have him pining for the embers.</p><p>"So what's the plan, then? Just avoid swimming forever?"</p><p>Michael <em>laughs</em>, for some reason. "I don't know! Maybe. Like some <em>Final Destination </em>situation where if I swim, I'll die, no matter what? Or is it that it was just that one day of bad fuckin' luck, and that's it, and now I'm safe?"</p><p>"Don't know," Jonas murmurs.</p><p>"Accidents happen to people all the time. And if it's a big enough accident or a bad enough accident, it's permanent," Michael says.</p><p>Jonas frowns. He wishes he could know what Alex and Michael talk about. What is repeated and how it is responded to.</p><p>Michael's eyes slide over to him, head tilting back and small smile tugging at his lips. "But, well. I guess it's only permanent if you die. And Alex didn't die."</p><p>Talking about Alex always has Jonas's mind reeling. Maybe it's just Michael's way of connecting dots. Downplaying his own death. It can't be permanent if it hasn't happened, Jonas would like to think.</p><p>The grey silence stretches out around the afternoon, thick and insulated by the clouds.</p><p>"If she didn't want me to change her mind," Michael says, eventually, "she wouldn't keep bringing me to her. That's what I think."</p><p><em>Lucky, </em>Jonas thinks.</p><p>***</p><p>A gap year.</p><p>That's what it comes down to.</p><p>A gap year, and a lazy day at home, a long time ago. Not so long ago, but a long time ago.</p><p>"He wouldn't let it go," Alex says to Jonas, the two of them inched away from everyone else at the start of a new night.</p><p>Jonas sips at his beer. It's a surreal sight to see Nona and Clarissa skirting around the bonfire, chatting between themselves while the night is young. Ren, trying to edge his way into their conversation.</p><p>One last time, Jonas hopes. One last time, or else he wouldn't be here.</p><p>God, he hopes.</p><p>"And it's like…" She's gesturing again, this time with her radio in one of her raised hands. She squeezes it, and her other hand's fingers squirm aimlessly. "You know?"</p><p>"No?"</p><p>She sighs. "I just feel bad. I feel bad that I couldn't leave it alone, that I let it overflow, that I called you here and now I'm going to do this stupid thing that gets everyone killed."</p><p>Jonas only has to open his mouth to protest before Alex cuts him off.</p><p>"I know. I know, I'm not responsible for everyone. But I'm nervous about Michael no matter how much he says not to be. And I'm — all those other Alexes and Rens and Jonases. All the people in those worlds who will tune in <em>instead of us</em>."</p><p>"You can't think about that so much," Jonas tries.</p><p>She looks amused by his desperation to comfort her, to validate her. He's just afraid she'll talk herself out of this.</p><p>"Yeah. I guess I just thought: Why should more of us have to suffer, when only one could do it?"</p><p>"Because it's not fair to that <em>one</em> when you're all the same person, making the same mistake. If you're being punished unfairly, you can at least share it."</p><p>"Another Alex will do the same thing I did."</p><p>"And another Jonas and another Michael will help her, too."</p><p>Her smile doesn't quite evoke happiness. "The more we talk about it the worse I feel. Let's just… Send everyone home and see where the pieces land. Alright? Michael convinces me to leave, I convince them to leave, everyone's on the verge of self-combusting from nerves, so let's, uh, do this."</p><p>Jonas doesn't want to linger on who she means by 'them.' By 'everyone.'</p><p>She's talking about rewriting the world through radio waves from a nuclear hole in reality, and all Jonas manages to do is nod along and take another sip of beer.</p><p>She does the same.</p><p>"Was it like this, the first time?" Jonas asks. He means: the two of us, side-by-side, drinking together.</p><p>"Yes and no," Alex says.</p><p>She brings the can to her lips again; Jonas watches her take a drink, then tilt her head back to watch the stars.</p><p>"A gap year," she marvels. When she laughs at the simplicity, the absurdity, Jonas can't help but join in. And as their laughter fades, she smiles up at him and says, like a promise, "I'll see you soon."</p><p>***</p><p>He's with her at the bottom of the sea. Her, and almost a hundred others. Her hand holds his, not like she is seeking comfort, but like she worries he'll drift away if she lets him.</p><p>She tells the ghosts: We're leaving.</p><p>We're going home, you and I.</p><p>Jonas doesn't know what the means, but she doesn't sound scared, so he isn't scared. He just holds onto Alex, holds onto the memories as they wash past him like waves, like a gentle undertow.</p><p>Alex tunes a radio and opens a door. This one for the ghosts, who leave without a word, but with a fear so palpable that Jonas feels like the pressure of the water all around them will crush him into nothing.</p><p>Alex tunes the radio, and the next door that opens is for the two of them.</p><p>***</p><p>Jonas jolts awake. All his joints ache as if he's just run for miles. He sits up in his bed, even as a headache pulses its punishment into his skull.</p><p>His room is dark. His usual room, his ordinary room. He gropes for his phone, then squints up at its too-bright screen.</p><p>He looks in his contacts, and there she is. Right at the top.</p><p>Alex, with a unicorn emoji next to her name.</p><p>That wasn't there before. He feels his heart pounding, his whole chest tight, too small for something quickly expanding in its walls. He feels like he can't process it in his mind. Even his emotions feel dulled from excitement, from relief. All he has is the physical.</p><p>A racing heart. Clammy palms.</p><p>He scrolls quickly to the M section, to where Michael's name sits, unobtrusive between the other entries.</p><p>He's calling before he thinks it through. When he glances to the clock and sees that it's four in the morning, he tries to hang up, but the call only rings once.</p><p>Michael's voice cuts through the white noise. It sounds heavy and slow with sleep. "Jonas? What's — are you okay? Do you need Alex?"</p><p>Jonas's breath catches. Alex is fine. Her name is in his phone, Michael knows her, and she's fine, and he's fine.</p><p>What leaves his mouth is a confused: "No, I'm — what? I mean, yeah. I'm okay. <em>You're</em> okay?"</p><p>"Yeah? I'm tired, but…" Michael trails off. Jonas hears the sound of a door, then the loud creaking of a bed, and Michael's voice letting out a startled grunt. "Alex? Are <em>you </em>okay?"</p><p>The sound of Alex's voice through the call is muffled. Too muffled for just being farther from the microphone. Jonas hears Michael laugh, hears the rustling and shifting of fabric.</p><p>"God, both of you, tonight? Sorry, Jonas, Alex just came in here and she's being clingy," Michael says. Then audibly hesitates, like a thought is clicking into place. "Oh, did you — did you break up? Because, Jonas, you're a bro and all, but I'm not comforting both sides of—"</p><p>"—No," Jonas interrupts, and hears Alex chiming in, flatly: "<em>What?</em> No."</p><p>"So you're both just conspiring to wake me up at — God, four in the morning?"</p><p>"Pretty much," Jonas says.</p><p>Michael doesn't remember. Why doesn't Michael remember?</p><p>Maybe Alex will explain everything to him tonight. Maybe he will remember. Jonas isn't sure. But this is as much as he has the energy for, now. Just checking in, just making sure, just hearing <em>both</em> their voices, alive and well.</p><p>He hears the pitch of Alex's again, and Michael murmurs something back before he says "Here," and hands the phone over in rustles and static.</p><p>"Hey, Jonas," Alex says, voice clear and soft. His breath catches again. It must have been audible, because he hears Alex laugh. "Come on, what are you so surprised for?"</p><p>He's too relieved to even try to play it cool. "I'm just glad," he says. "To hear your voice."</p><p>This time it's her; she's the one to let out a quiet, bitten-back sound of surprise. He likes it, somehow.</p><p>"And that Michael is okay," Jonas amends.</p><p>"Right." She says.</p><p>"Right," Jonas repeats, face warm.</p><p>"Okay, well… Go back to sleep! I'll see you tomorrow."</p><p>"Sure," Jonas says.</p><p>He hears the tail end of Michael asking, "You have plans?" But it's cut off with the call ending.</p><p>The screen goes dark. Jonas holds his phone over his chest, lays in bed, and stares up at the ceiling.</p><p>Everyone is out and okay.</p><p>His heart is racing too much to sleep, its wings flapping too intensely. He's filled with a restless energy but it's so late at night that there's nothing to do with it.</p><p>The world's been rewritten. Alex's name in his phone is such a small thing, but Jonas knows it must have a ripple effect. There must be <em>more </em>to this, and he has no way of knowing what's changed. What's stayed the same.</p><p>No, that's not true.</p><p>Jonas brings his phone back into view and swipes to his messages.</p><p>He reads the conversation with Michael, first. It spans back for the past couple of months, back to when he moved to Camena. It doesn't strike him as all that different. A little awkward, but friendly chatter. Arranging hangouts every so often. Rarely.</p><p>It's strange to be the spy and the spied-on both at the same time, Jonas thinks. Like a voyeur to himself. He doesn't remember typing many of these messages, but every now and then he's struck by one he does remember.</p><p>They're still the same people, at their core. They still fall into the same routines. Same conversations, same in-jokes.</p><p>There are a couple messages that seem… Off. But he can't jump to conclusions. Instead, Jonas squints at his screen.</p><p>He swipes over until he's in his conversation with Alex.</p><p>He doesn't even have to scroll back to find it; to find the puzzle piece that slots into place and helps him understand the status quo of this new world. He should have figured it out from what Michael had said on the phone but he had thought — maybe he was just teasing.</p><p>It's their most recent texts, literally only hours ago.</p><p>Jonas</p><p>
  <em>See you tomorrow. Love you.</em>
</p><p>11:24 pm</p><p>Alex</p><p>
  <em>Night! Love you!</em>
</p><p>11:25 pm</p><p><em><br/>
</em>Jonas is certain he'll have a heart attack if he scrolls back any further. He very pointedly clicks the screen of his phone off and lets his hand drop back to this side.</p><p>In the dark, he listens to his own heart drumming crazily against his ribs. He wonders if Alex has looked, yet. And if not, when she will.</p><p>No, it's probably a low priority. He gets that.</p><p>But energy buzzes through his whole body. He feels like he could talk a mile a minute if anyone would listen, but he also can't form a coherent thought to save his life. He feels like he could run a lap. He feels like he could run several laps. He feels like he could kiss Alex.</p><p>***</p><p><em>Come over, </em>she texts him, in the morning.</p><p>Jonas's first thought is: of course she doesn't want to leave Michael's side.</p><p>His second thought is: she would have had to look at her texts to send that.</p><p>He feels like a stranger to his own skin as he gets dressed and eats breakfast. Like he's going through the motions, his mind up in the clouds. Too hazy with fog for him to even revel in his own thoughts.</p><p>He takes the bus to Michael's house — Alex's house — to make the trip last longer than the drive would. He's stalling.</p><p>The whole way there, he scrolls through his text messages, trying to piece things together. But it's hard; there are conversations they clearly had in person that he can't remember. Not every puzzle piece, every stage of their relationship, is eternalized in text message.</p><p>But some are.</p><p>His face doesn't feel any cooler when he's finished reading the messages. He's so focused on staring out the window that he almost misses his stop.</p><p>***</p><p>Alex answers the door. It occurs to Jonas that this is the first time he's ever seen her in different clothes. Without Michael's jacket. She has on a long tank-top and leggings; he can see her bra strap. No, wait. Refocus. His eyes dart back up to hers but it's too late, and she leans her head back to look down her nose at him.</p><p>She hums knowingly.</p><p>There's no good way to defend his honor without admitting to his own wandering gaze, but a part of him thinks: they're dating. Or, this world thinks they're dating. So who cares?</p><p>He rolls his eyes, and this makes her laugh, and Michael's voice calls from the living room, "Please stop having psychic conversations, it's super awkward for me."</p><p>"Wah wah," Alex mocks him, reaching out for Jonas's wrist and tugging him inside. "Not used to being a third wheel? Because listen, you've been with Clarissa way longer, and I'm kind of over it too!"</p><p>"Point," Michael concedes.</p><p>Jonas tries not to think about how Alex has not let go of his wrist, even after she's closed the door behind him. He looks over to Michael, sprawled out on the couch.</p><p>"A gap year," Alex says, with the same amount of awe as she'd had for it last time. Jonas wonders how long this will last; the wonder of something to simple meaning so much for her.</p><p>"Let me be lazy for once in my life," Michael grouses, not understanding the weight of it one bit. "<em>God</em>."</p><p>"Whatever you want," Alex murmurs. Jonas doesn't even think Michael hears her.</p><p>A moment later she is tugging him again by the wrist, through the archway and down the hall.</p><p>"Door open," Michael calls after them. Jonas feels Alex's grip go tight for a split second, but all she does is let out a loud groan.</p><p>Inside her room, she lets go of Jonas. She closes the door behind them, slowly and carefully to keep it quiet.</p><p>Jonas raises an eyebrow at her.</p><p>"Don't make it weird," she warns him.</p><p>"I'm not the one that closed the door," he says, defensively.</p><p>"It's—" Alex cuts herself off, her face going red. Jonas wishes that this didn't make <em>him </em>blush too, but at least they're on the same page. "I haven't told him. About everything. And I don't know that I want to. That's all!"</p><p>Jonas drops down to sit on the edge of her bed. He tries to alleviate his own embarrassment by teasing her with a doubtful: "Sure, sure. So why doesn't he remember?"</p><p>"I have a theory, but… I don't know. It's kind of just a guess. You wanna hear it?"</p><p>"Sure."</p><p>Alex leans her weight against the door, still moving carefully to keep it from creaking. Her arms are crossed behind her as she looks down to her feet.</p><p>"He wasn't there the first time. You remember the rewrite of the night you were there for. He wasn't there, so the rewrite got… Um… Rewritten over. Like save files. New game versus new game plus."</p><p>Jonas doesn't quite follow, and it must be clear from his face, because when Alex looks up at him to gauge his reaction, she starts snickering.</p><p>"Never mind," she murmurs.</p><p>Alex pushes away from the door and crosses the room, coming to stand in front of Jonas, wedging herself between his open legs. She looks down at him, and he isn't sure what to make of her fond smile. When she reaches up he thinks that she might cup his face in her hands, but her fingers touch along his throat, instead.</p><p>He wonders if she can feel his pulse quickening. If she feels him swallow.</p><p>"So," she tells him.</p><p>"So," he repeats without thinking.</p><p>"So. This world is pretty different. It has some. Ideas."</p><p>"Apparently."</p><p>His heart is caught in his throat, the moment dragging. He wants to tell her: but you don't owe me that. He wants to tell her: we don't have to be what this world set up.</p><p>She shifts her weight nervously. Her fingers slide around to the back of his neck, fingers carding into his hair. Gently, she tugs his head back so that she can lean down, so that she can press her lips soft against his.</p><p>It's easy, kissing Alex.</p><p>Everything is easy with her. His hand finds her hips; he feels her tilt her head and tilts his in return, both of them easily matching the other. Warm lips, and her breath in his mouth. They don't draw back, even when she needs to stop, to wet her own lips. It means her tongue runs over his bottom lip too, and he shivers.</p><p>Alex sighs into his mouth. "I can't believe I get this."</p><p>All it is, Jonas thinks, is an ordinary life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This half had so many rewrites... There were so many versions with Absurd Amounts of Bickering and I kind of wish there had been a good way to keep some of it, but there just wasn't. But that's okay because the reason it got cut was because it also sucked a lot. Anyway here's this, which sucks. A little less. Sorry.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. forget</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Curious about the rewritten world without ghosts??? WELL I WAS. APPARENTLY.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A lot of things happen, at the party. A lot of things that start like this:</p><p>There is a cave. It's beautiful on the inside. Ice cold and full of crystals and refracting light. Michael sticks by Clarissa. Ren sticks by Nona. Behind them, Jonas walks beside Alex and doesn't feel quite so much like a fifth wheel as he listens to her ramble on and on and on.</p><p>There is a radio. In the cave it tunes into something – into skittish stations that lose their focus. It makes Jonas think of a spirit box, picking up stray words from different waves. <em>Fine</em>, says one channel, <em>Go, then, </em>says the next<em>.</em> It makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but the others only chitter and giggle about it, and the moment passes.</p><p>There is Alex. Frozen in place. Jonas sets a hand on the small of her back, and she jolts back to reality with a look of mild confusion. "Creepy," she says, and tilts her head to the side with an easy smile that feels like it's just for him.</p><p>They hike back to the mouth of the cave as a cluster of laughing teens, bumping into each other, interrupting each other, all of them bickering and teasing with a comfort pulled out of them by several empty beer cans. In the dark, Alex stumbles against him from behind, her hands pressing up against his back. She hooks her arm with his when she comes around to walk beside him. Like they are old friends, like he belongs, like this is completely normal and like–</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>The night ends like this.</p><p>Sitting up on the rocks like a perch, Michael looks down over all of the others with Clarissa content at his side. Jonas thinks he looks like a lifeguard against the skyline.</p><p>By the fire, Ren and Nona's conversations have slowly grown more and more insular, and as the night winds down the two of them lay on the blanket, staring up at the sky and murmuring together back and forth. Jonas sees the way Nona leans in when Ren leans back, following him, smiling soft and pretty.</p><p>By the fence, Alex sticks by Jonas's side, probably sympathetic that the one who invited Jonas out is busy with a girl. They drink comfortably and slowly, and Jonas can't remember what their conversations are even about. A lot of things, probably. He just knows that he likes the way she gestures, likes watching her fingers grasping the top of a beer can, and likes her warm eyes on him.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>And the night stays with him like this:</p><p>Alex's soft breathing as she dozes off, her head resting on his shoulder. Her hair tickling his cheek as he finally gives in, resting his head atop hers. Their arms lined up parallel. The sky slowly lighting, the sun rising over the sea, and Michael glancing at him with something like surprise on his face.</p><p>Jonas's eyes flutter shut again; he feels vaguely nauseous from drinking too much, but he is still enjoying the warm of Alex's body, enjoying the feeling of the way they both expand and deflate together, breathing in synch.</p><p>Alex's voice is a quiet, slurred whisper when she speaks. He'd thought she was still asleep. "I'm glad I met you," She mumbles. "This was..."</p><p>She has to stop to yawn, and he chuckles quietly. She laughs too, comfortable, or maybe just too drunk to be self-conscious.</p><p>She finishes, gently, "This was nice."</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>It's been days, and Jonas can't stop thinking about it. He's already texted with Ren – casual small talk. But he doesn't know how to text Alex.</p><p>How much of her affection, whispered in the sunrise, had just been the alcohol? Eight pm to seven am. Eleven hour friends. Maybe there wasn't even a connection, like his stupid mind keeps telling him there was. Maybe she's just <em>nice.</em></p><p>Well, in her own way. After watching her slap her own best friend in the face, Jonas isn't sure that's the best word for it. Friendly, maybe. Outgoing. Easy to talk to. The kind of girl that anyone would get along with, the kind of girl that you really shouldn't read into so much like a weirdo with a too-quick crush.</p><p>Jonas types several messages, deleting them all before hitting send. He finally settles on:</p><p>
  <em>So if that was B- Alex, what's an A+ Alex?</em>
</p><p>Jonas stares at the message a long moment before he sends it. He regrets it immediately, when he finally does. That's so fucking overt. He's so transparent. He's been in town for literally, like, three days, and he's already trying to flirt with someone. And badly, at that.</p><p>The thought of it is absurd, or maybe just <em>surreal</em>. For someone antisocial, someone with few-to-no friends to be doing this to the first girl he meets in Camena is – God, does he seem desperate?</p><p><em>Is </em>he desperate?</p><p>His phone buzzes.</p><p>
  <em>Nice try. </em>
</p><p>At least it seems playful. Jonas has a hard time imagining Alex as someone harsh, not like he's been told Clarissa can be, when she wants to.</p><p>Okay, he tells himself. Okay. Boundary drawn. You shot your shot, and now she'll just be your friend's best friend. Nothing wrong with that.</p><p>But he does wonder why Ren made that comment to begin with. "This is B- Alex, just for your, uh, <em>calibration</em>."</p><p>Maybe he'd just been trying to steer Jonas towards Alex to keep him from taking any interest in Nona, but it's not like Jonas was ever going to try anything <em>there. </em>But how would Ren know? They'd only just met, at the time.</p><p>His phone buzzes again. Alex's name lights up once more, with the unicorn emoji she'd set when she entered her name into his phone for him.<br/>
<br/>
<em>That </em>had seemed flirtatious, Jonas thinks. Or is he just <em>way </em>worse at reading girls than he had thought? Was he the only one who had felt a jolt when her fingers brushed his. When she had laughed and handed his phone back, and turned too quickly to her other friends, as if she was embarrassed?</p><p>
  <em>Wanna grab lunch, newbie? I can show you around!</em>
</p><p>Jonas squints at his phone.</p><p>Is he just obscenely, absurdly, <em>unbelievably</em> bad at reading girls?</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Alex looks nice when he picks her up, just past noon.</p><p>She is wearing a black sundress with sunflowers on it. The neckline is low, emphasized by a necklace that dips so far into her cleavage that he can't even see what rests at the end of the chain. The spaghetti straps of her dress are tied at her shoulders in tight bows, and as she settles into the seat of his truck, she has to tug the skirt down around her thighs.</p><p>His eyes trail down her slender legs. Down to her black combat boots. He lets out an amused puff of laughter, looking back up to her face. Her hair is in a ponytail again, but this time it's less tangled up by the wind than it had been on the island. Teal strands frame her face, and Jonas realizes she's wearing makeup. Not much; not enough to be distracting from what he thinks is an extremely attractive natural look, but some eyeliner.</p><p>It clicks when she tilts her head to smirk at him in what he realizes has been an awkwardly long silence while he blatantly checked her out.</p><p>A+ Alex. Right.</p><p>He clears his throat. "So - where to?"</p><p>"The gingerbread house."</p><p>"Directions?"</p><p>Alex laughs. "Just go East. I'll guide you as we go!"</p><p>He thinks he sees movement from the window of her house as he pulls away. Probably Michael, he figures, or her parents.</p><p>He gets on the highway early, and is a bit disappointed not to be driving along the ocean, at first. But it fades soon, as the road winds through the forest. Through the tall redwoods casting their shadow over the dark gray of paved roads. They twist and turn so serpentine smooth that it makes Jonas think of rivers on a map.</p><p>Only every now and then do they get blotches of sunlight light, spattered through the leaves overhead. Golden patches on the road and in the car. Sometimes so much that he has to squint, other times just enough to glint off of Alex's skin when he glances her way, enough to dance on her arm in the window or on her lap, on her thighs.</p><p>Eyes on the road, Jonas reminds himself. He asks, to reorient himself, "So is the gingerbread house… Good?" He hardly minds the drive; it's relaxing, if anything, with no traffic around them. But it is far, so it must be worth it. Right?</p><p>"No," Alex says easily. "It sucks."</p><p>Jonas lets out a startled laugh. "Then why are we going there?"</p><p>"Gotta," Alex says. For a moment he thinks she'll leave it at this, but then she explains, "Tradition, mostly? Like, if you're gonna live around here, you gotta know the important stuff. For example: The gingerbread house has been sold like three times, and it was never great, but now it sucks particularly bad."</p><p>"And that's the important stuff?"</p><p>"Yep."</p><p>"I'll take your word for it."</p><p>It's a hour and a half of driving through the forest, only sometimes passing through what Jonas suspects are towns but may just be clusters of convenience stores and gas stations.</p><p>But the scenery is nice. The music is nice. Listening to Alex rattle off trivia about the town is nice.</p><p>When they reach their destination, the parking lot is a quick pull off directly from the road. It's a cute little restaurant, buried deep in the woods, with nothing in any direction for miles. There are only two other cars. Jonas wonders how they stay in business, especially if their reputation is so bad.</p><p>Maybe some kind of pact, where locals bring unsuspecting newbies in, like Alex is doing now.</p><p>Inside, they're seated right away, surrounded by empty tables.</p><p>The lemonade is particularly good, Jonas thinks. The food is particularly… Not. It isn't awful, like he'd expected. It doesn't taste <em>bad</em>. It just doesn't taste <em>good, </em>either.</p><p>He keeps catching Alex watching his expression as he eats, a wide smile on her face.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>She's supposed to direct him back home, but he can tell that isn't where she's taking him. Even so, he follows her instructions, letting her lead them down the coast until they reach a public parking lot.</p><p>She hops out of the car without a word, pacing over to pay for their parking pass.</p><p>When she returns to slip it onto the dashboard, Jonas gives her a look. "How polite of you to pay for wherever we are."</p><p>"I am a gentleman," she assures him. Then rounds the truck to grab him by the arm and tug him down the narrow path to the beach.</p><p>It's cold and windy, but at least the sun makes it warmer than the island had been.</p><p>They kick off their shoes and walk along the edge of the waves. The sun is bright, now. The beach empty. Alex is still chattering about this and that, and Jonas lets her lead the way with twirls and hops and the occasional detour to veer away from the water and stalk after a seagull.</p><p>The world seems too good to be real.</p><p>Cute girl. Blue sea, blue sky.</p><p>It's all so surreal, so unfathomably easy and natural.</p><p>Alex tugs him to a washed up tree trunk, and stands beside him while he smokes. She sounds pleased with herself. "This is the best public beach, but I'll show you some closer ones, later. Only, like, three people have died here in the past decade."</p><p>Jonas looks up at her with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>"Too morbid?" Alex asks, innocently.</p><p>"Three seems like a lot."</p><p>"Sneaker waves," she says. She crosses her arms over her chest and nods sagely. "Don't underestimate the ocean. Three's a pretty small number compared to some other spots."</p><p>"So what does it say that you brought me here?"</p><p>"I brought <em>us </em>here."</p><p>"Ah, good. Even worse."</p><p>She laughs; it's infectious enough to get him laughing too.</p><p>He feels the embers of his cigarette in his lungs but they don't beat the warm of his stomach, of his cheeks when he glances back up to her and gets another grin in response.</p><p>"Surreal," Jonas murmurs.</p><p>Alex's hands come to hold each other behind her back. "What is?"</p><p>Jonas doesn't miss the way she arches, chest out. He doesn't presume that it's on purpose, but he also doesn't presume it <em>isn't</em>. Not after today.</p><p>He feels like he's known her for an eternity.</p><p>He's spent his whole life believing that having friends was just <em>one of those things</em>. One of those strange, impossible things that everyone else had mastered around him. Something that he would never understand.</p><p>Alex cocks her head, bouncing on her heels. "Hm?"</p><p>He takes a long drag from his cigarette, and both of them watch him blow out the smoke with a quiet fascination.</p><p>"Nothing," he says.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>It's not just Alex, either. It's Ren, too. Nona, even, and Clarissa and Michael, sometimes.</p><p>Life-changing parties are teen-movie bullshit, Jonas knows. And yet. And <em>yet</em>.</p><p>Every day during lunch, Ren waves him over to their table. Usually there are more people there than Jonas knows, a rotating crowd of Carly, Ben, Missy, God there are more, who are they all? Ren's bandmates and a couple of Nona's friends on occasion.</p><p>Sometimes Ren takes pity on them and they eat outside, just the four of them.</p><p>At least once a week and almost every weekend, Ren invites him over to get high and play video games or just watch TV together.</p><p>Jonas probably spends more time with Ren than with Alex. With Alex it's mostly just text messages, scattered throughout the week. Homework questions, miscellaneous bitching, and the stupid Camena Trivia that she won't stop sending him at four in the morning.</p><p>When she had dressed up, dressed up <em>for him,</em> he had thought maybe… Something. Maybe something.</p><p>But he'll take this, too. Playful bickering with his best friend's real best friend. It's still more than anything else he's ever had. All of this is.</p><p>It's like a dream, and that's  – bizarre. No-name small-town, moving to run from a too-quiet house, leaving one shitty town for a barely less shitty town.</p><p>But he has friends.</p><p>It's like a dream to be grinning at his phone at four am. To pinch Alex's arm when he sees her before class the next day. To watch her eyes scrunch up as she laughs and let her hit him in the arm until Ren pulls him away for Math class.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>
  <em>Today is bad, distract me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Music recs? </em>
</p><p>Jonas doesn't pry. He doesn't ask why she isn't going to her best friend for comfort, or her brother, or anyone else. He just scrolls through his music library, picks out a song he likes that he thinks she might not hate, and sends her the name.</p><p>Three minutes later she replies: <em>Too slow. Faster.</em></p><p>
  <em>So picky. Beggars can't be choosers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And yet, I am the choosiest.</em>
</p><p>He tries again. He waits for her feedback.</p><p>Tries again.</p><p>An hour later she texts: <em>Thanks, all better!</em></p><p>He doesn't quite believe her, but he figures if she wanted to tell him, she would. It isn't like complaining about bad days has historically been off limits in their texts. If she isn't telling him, he trusts her that it's because she doesn't want to.</p><p>He makes a playlist of the songs she liked, and forgets about it until next time.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>There is a next time.</p><p>Alex mopes, and Jonas sends her music. Alex listens, and Jonas tries again. And again, and again, and again.</p><p>She never mentions it out loud, and so Jonas doesn't either.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Prom.</p><p>Jonas doesn't even want to go. He says as much openly, and for some reason Ren kicks him under the cafeteria table.</p><p>Jonas scowls but when he looks, the other boy is staring intently at Alex.</p><p>"Clarissa wants us to all go dress shopping together," Nona offers. She's the messenger again. Clarissa likes to spend her lunch break doing homework before her next class in, what she always emphasizes with a <em>very</em> firm tone, <em>complete isolation unless you are Nona</em>.</p><p>"That sounds… Fun," Alex says, dragging out the words uncomfortably. "But I don't really want to go alone. Kind of. Embarrassing?"</p><p>"No one's asked you?" Jonas asks, surprised. He pulls his leg up to rub at the sore spot from Ren's kick, just in time to watch the other boy shift in place like he had tried to kick Jonas again. What the fuck? <em>Why?</em></p><p>"Mm, not yet?" Alex hums. "I doubt anyone will. People here either don't know me well enough to not be intimidated by the whole 'Michael's kid sister' thing, or… They know me well enough to be intimidated by the… My all of me."</p><p>"Ben Owens wants to ask you," Ren says. His eyes cut from Alex to Jonas and back. "But I mean, I could stop him, though."</p><p>Nona's eyes dart to Jonas, too. "You could do better."</p><p>Jonas silently prays for them to learn some subtlety.</p><p>"Ben seems nice enough," Alex offers, noncommittal. Then it's her turn to look at Jonas. "What do you think?"</p><p>"About some guy I've never met?" Jonas asks. "Asking a friend's friend out to a dance I don't care about?"</p><p>Alex beams. "Yeah!"</p><p> "Uh… Do what you want?"</p><p>This time <em>she's</em> the one to kick him in the ankle, but it's just a light knock from beside him. "Boring! Don't be boring."</p><p>A smile tugs at his lips. "How should I entertain you, then?"</p><p>"I…" She falters. Looks away. "I don't know."</p><p>Nona, for some reason, sighs deeply.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Ben Owens <em>does </em>ask Alex to prom.</p><p>Jonas does his best not to be jealous. It only makes sense that <em>someone</em> would ask her. Alex sticks to her little group, but she knows everyone. Or maybe everyone knows <em>her</em>. And he's heard the way adults talk about her, sure, but he doesn't think the other teens are quite so… Judgmental. Not as much as she seems to think they are.</p><p>When she reports back to the group of them, she doesn't look thrilled, but she does smile and blush a bit. Jonas doesn't like the flare of frustration in his chest. He should be happy for her. So he just says: "Congrats," and leaves it at that.</p><p>He drives her home from school. He doesn't remember when that habit started; he feels like he's been doing it forever.</p><p>She presses, "You gonna ask someone?"</p><p>"I still don't really want to go."</p><p>He doesn't hate parties. He likes disappearing in crowds and people-watching. But he also likes drinking and smoking, and seeing people have fun and be comfortable. School events aren't really the place for any of that. They're just tense and awkward, and there's so much pointless drama around the whole thing.</p><p>"Well, if you change your mind," Alex sings, eyebrows waggling. "<em>I </em>heard that <em>Carly </em>would not be opposed to you asking her."</p><p>Carly.</p><p>Jonas considers. She's nice enough. One of Ren's friends, pretty friendly with Alex, too. He's chatted with her once or twice and unwillingly stares at the back of her head a lot during Social Studies.</p><p>Jonas glances to Alex, watching for just a split second as she scrapes nail-polish off of one of her nails with another, her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration. She overslept, today. Jonas can tell by her loose side-ponytail instead of her usual.</p><p>Maybe Ben asked her last night. Maybe he made some big ordeal of it. Maybe the excitement of being asked kept her up. Maybe she'd been busy reporting back to Clarissa and Nona, or looking at dresses online.</p><p>He wonders what sort of dress she'll wear, and thinks back to that sunflower sundress.</p><p><em>Prom, </em>Jonas thinks, with disgust.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Carly asks him first. With her arms crossed over her chest and her cheeks red, she says, "I want to go and I don't want to go alone, and I <em>know </em>you don't have a date, so... Can we go as friends?"</p><p>He hesitates, and it's kind of devastating that she laughs at him and repeats, knowingly, "<em>As friends. </em>I know."</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Alex texts him a photo of her dress. It's red; a halter-top with a high-low skirt. It's very pretty… On the hanger.</p><p>He texts her back:</p><p>
  <em>Tease. </em>
</p><p>Jonas hopes the joking tone comes across okay through text.</p><p>
  <em>I'm not getting all done up just to take a photo just to show you! And I'm not wearing this nice dress as B- Alex!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Really dwelling on that comment, huh?</em>
</p><p>He doesn't get a response for a long moment, but he sees the little dots of a message in progress pop up several times. She probably doesn't want to admit it. He should be more delicate.</p><p>
  <em>Well, I'm excited to see it when you're ready.</em>
</p><p>Maybe that's too earnest. He wonders if she sent the same photo to her actual prom date. And if not – does that make Jonas a replacement, or just one of her friends, dropped down to a completely different level?</p><p>Did she send it to her other friends? Does she text them as much as she texts him?</p><p>
  <em>Thanks, Jonas.</em>
</p><p>Jonas stares at his phone and thinks again about how obnoxiously over-dramatic prom makes people.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>It's worth it to go.</p><p>Alex's hair frames her face, and instead of her usual ponytail, the rest of it is tied back in a bun. She's wearing makeup again, and a thin golden bracelet with an infinity loop resting on her wrist.</p><p>It looks expensive. A gift from her suitor, maybe?</p><p>The dress is flattering. He likes the way the skirt frames her slender legs, likes her bare arms.</p><p>He feels out of place in his own clothes, even if it is just a nice jacket over a button-up. This sort of thing is so much easier for boys, Jonas thinks, looking out at a sea of very plain suits and very pretty, very different dresses in every color imaginable.</p><p>"You look good!" Alex assures him, without him having to say anything.</p><p>Ben, next to her, gives an amicable nod for politeness' sake.</p><p>Alex preens, impatiently turning on her heels. Her light laughter means <em>me next, me next, </em>and Jonas's lips curl.</p><p>"You too," he tells her.</p><p>A+ Alex, he thinks. He considers saying it, getting out an inside-joke in front of her date, but decides to swallow down that impulse. It hardly matters – Alex flits off too quickly, leaving Ben to trail after her.</p><p>That's how she is. Jonas always relishes following her lead; it's fun to chase the storm.</p><p>Suddenly, Jonas feels nauseous.</p><p>He <em>likes </em>crowds, he reminds himself. This one <em>is</em> particularly stuffy, though. Too crowded, too hot. Too loud, lights flashing too bright then out too dark.</p><p>Jonas looks to his side in time to see Carly practically skipping away towards another group of girls as they wave her over. He follows, because he's pretty sure that's what a good date should do.</p><p>He spends a couple minutes with Carly's friends, exchanging polite hellos and surface level conversations until Carly assures him she won't be offended if he goes to look for Ren and the others. "I'll come grab you later to dance or something?" She offers.</p><p>He nods, and decides he likes Carly more than he thought as he ducks away from her cluster of friends.</p><p>She didn't want to come alone, but he's not sure she really wanted to spend much time with him, either. Maybe that was what made him the ideal candidate. It wasn't that she was interested, it was that their social circles overlap conveniently.</p><p>He bumps into Clarissa and Michael. Clarissa tugs him aside and tells him no one is upstairs, if he needs a moment. His shoulders sag with relief at the idea of some privacy, no matter how brief. He wonders if his discomfort was that obvious on his face, but second guesses the idea when Michael, for some reason, shoves a bottle of bubbles into his hands.</p><p>He searches for familiar faces for – God, he doesn't know how long. The music and slow pulse of the floor beneath his feet is disorienting.</p><p>Alone, Jonas makes his way to the stairs. Maybe he'll see them from up here. Or maybe he'll just get a breather. Either sounds good.</p><p>As advertised, the music doesn't reach quite as loudly. The lights don't strobe as dramatically.</p><p>He <em>isn't</em> alone. Alex is sitting on the ledge of the balcony, but thankfully her legs aren't swung over the edge of it. Even so, he finds himself reaching out to hold her by the waist.</p><p>She startles, but relaxes into the touch when he says, "Dangerous to sit on the edge."</p><p>"I won't fall," she tells him with confidence. "I refuse to."</p><p>He just frowns, but it's enough to make her concede. She draws away from the balcony, slipping away from his touch and moving to sit in one of the front-row seats.</p><p>"Where's Carly at?" She asks, as he sits down beside her.</p><p>"With her friends. What about your guy?" As if he doesn't remember Ben's name. It's hard to tell in the dark; he thinks he sees Alex snicker silently.</p><p>"He's around."</p><p>That isn't an answer, but Jonas doesn't push it.</p><p>They sit in the dark and listen to the music. Eventually Jonas remembers the bottle and pops it open. He dips the wand, leans forward, and blows bubbles over the edge. If anyone below reacts, or even notices, he can't hear it over the music and bustle.</p><p>But Alex laughs. "Michael give you that?"</p><p>Jonas nods and offers her the bottle. She takes it, fingers brushing his, bracelet catching light.</p><p>"That's pretty," Jonas says, hand lingering a moment too long before he lets go. It's more of a question more than a statement.</p><p>Alex smiles. He feels somehow blessed by the fast pulse of the song. The lights flash to match it; he gets to see the way her eyes go warm. He gets to pretend his heart rate is just trying to match the bass.</p><p>"Isn't it?" she asks, holding her wrist up as if she's blocking out the sun. She lights up when she looks at it, like just the sight of that bracelet could turn her whole day around. "Michael gave it to me the other day."</p><p>There's a weak wave of relief; it reshapes itself into guilt as it recedes.</p><p>He barely hears what she says next, quiet, nearly drowned out by the music. A separate thought, out of nowhere.</p><p>"I had this dream the other night," Alex says sounding distant, still squinting at her wrist. "Where I drowned."</p><p>"Yeah?" Jonas asks. He wishes they could have a quieter moment, but the sound below won't allow it.</p><p>"And you were there," she says, eyes moving to watch him sidelong. "And you saved me."</p><p>"Sounds like you owe me."</p><p>"In your dreams," Alex retorts. Then processes her own words and laughs. "Dream for a dream. That's fair, right?"</p><p>She doesn't wait for an answer before she leans forward to blow bubbles over the railing. The song switches. The track changes. The lightshow dulls and starts anew, and each time it does, Jonas thinks they should leave. They should go back downstairs to the party, to the people they actually came here with, to their <em>friends</em>.</p><p>He loses count of how many songs go by before they finally give in and head back.</p><p>Jonas follows Alex down the stairs, and shares a rueful look with her when a small group of students push past them, heading up. Their secret spot is lost for the night. It was a miracle it lasted as long as it did.</p><p>Closer to the dancefloor of the cramped venue, Alex edges along the wall. Eventually she settles into an open spot, trying to scan the crowd. And God, it's crowded. Was it this crowded earlier? It feels ten degrees hotter than upstairs, thanks to the body heat and proximity.</p><p>Jonas tries not to stand too close to Alex, but the eternal ebb and flow of students keep bumping into him. A particularly hard knock against his back has him falling over her. He catches his weight with his arm on the wall beside her.</p><p>"I think there's a word for this," Alex says, snickering, but Jonas doesn't know what she's talking about. All he can do is lean in closer to let another small group pass them by.</p><p>Jonas smells peaches. He blinks. "Are you wearing perfume?"</p><p>"Why would I <em>not </em>be wearing perfume at prom, Jonas? Of course I'm wearing perfume! Jeez."</p><p>"I just – you smell nice."</p><p>Cool, apparently it's time to make an idiot of himself. At least Alex laughs instead of frowning or making a face.</p><p>"I always smell nice," she tells him.</p><p>"You usually smell like shampoo."</p><p>She tips her head back until it knocks lightly against the wall. She arches one eyebrow. "How often are you smelling me, Jonas?"</p><p>He doesn't think it will spare him her teasing if he points out that it's always her who sits beside him. At the cafeteria or at Ren's house – even at the theater. It's always her that winds up beside him, even if it means being further from her own best friend.</p><p>"–Do you see Ren, yet?"</p><p>Alex smirks, but accepts the distraction. She bounces up to her toes to look over his shoulder, then drops back down. "Nope!"</p><p>She doesn't seem to put out by any of this. Probably because he's blocking the crowd from pushing into her, and a frown pulls his lips thin. "Are you actually looking or are you just keeping me trapped here with you for fun?"</p><p>"Heaven forbid we have some fun together," she says, rolling her eyes.</p><p>He doesn't know how to process that and stammers an awkward, "Uh-m?"</p><p>She's laughing again. Jonas's gaze lowers. dropping down to look at her face. It's probably too dark for her to see that he's blushing. Thank God.</p><p>Another shove, this time not a passing crowd but the ever-expanding dancefloor and a high-tension song. He holds himself up just fine, but Alex's hands preemptively come to his chest, fingers splaying out in a touch so weak that it wouldn't have helped catch him if she'd needed to.</p><p>This time when she laughs, he can't hear it over the song.</p><p>She doesn't pull away from him. She leans closer. His heart stutters in his chest and he wonders if she feels it beneath her fingertips. He feels her cheek brush his. Her breath on his ear. His mind races, and Alex asks, "You wanna go outside?"</p><p>Jonas nods.</p><p>He likes the excuse to be so close to her and likes that they've done their due diligence to find the people they're supposed to be hanging out with but still wound up together. But it's a dangerous sort of like, a self-indulgent kind. He needs to be willing to let it go.</p><p>She leads him by the hand, out into the chilled evening air. They aren't the only ones outside, but it's just the occasional pair of friends, taking a breather, spread out from each other and quiet.</p><p>Alex stands close beside him. Maybe she's cold out here; her dress doesn't give her nearly as much coverage.</p><p>She dips her head back to look up at the stars, and Jonas takes the moment to shrug out of his jacket and drop it over her shoulders.</p><p>"Such a gentleman," she teases.</p><p>"Returning the favor."</p><p>She tilts her head; she doesn't remember what he's talking about. He doesn't mind.</p><p>For the third time tonight, the two of them carve out their own space at the party, apart from everyone else. From their own friends, from their own dates. Jonas thinks about Alex sticking by his side the night of the party on the island, falling asleep on his shoulder.</p><p>And he knows, he <em>knows </em>that he loves her.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Music is a recurring theme.</p><p>When Alex is down, Jonas sends her music. He knows better than to ask why she's upset. He learns through snippets, through scattered puzzle pieces in different conversations, that the answer is usually that her parents are fighting. It never makes her feel any better to tell him as much, so he doesn't make her.</p><p>He starts with that she'd asked for: his kind of music. Careful selections from it, maybe. Songs he thinks she might like, nothing he thinks she wouldn't.</p><p>He figures out her tastes as time goes on. Still picks songs from his own library, but knows which to skip and which to send.</p><p>It becomes songs that remind him of her.</p><p>The problem, of course, is that those songs only get more and more romantic over time.</p><p>He is sending her pining love songs, he realizes one day. He has been for a while, now.</p><p>He is sending them, and she is asking for them.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Jonas is sitting on Alex's bed, and trying not to feel weird about that fact.</p><p>Sure, they grab lunch all the time. Sometimes even without Ren. But usually it <em>is </em>with Ren, and usually the most they see of each other is when they are at his house or in school.</p><p>But they had been texting bullshit back and forth, and one thing led to another, and now…</p><p>Jonas is sitting on her bed, and trying not to think about the way he and Ren had been talking about her in Gym class, laughing over something she'd said at lunch. The way Ren had looked at him knowingly. The way Ben had rolled his eyes good naturedly and elbowed Jonas in the side as he teased, <em>"Just ask her out, already."</em></p><p>He is doing a very, very poor job of not thinking about this.</p><p>Alex has been rambling about something, some author making an appearance in Portland this weekend, and Jonas nods along and tries to not look as preoccupied as he is. It's a little easier when she scrambles across her room to a bookshelf, thumbing over the titles until she finds what she wants.</p><p>Jonas looks over her room for the tenth time today. It's so… Sparse.</p><p>Not that his isn't, but that's because he's been too lazy to unpack most of his boxes. He has an <em>excuse</em>. It's<em> weird</em> that Alex's room matches his. A couple posters on the wall. Some clothes on the floor. A handful of trinkets on a shelf, and that's <em>it. </em></p><p>Like she never settled in to the only home she's ever had.</p><p>"It's my favorite, and if you judge me I'll kill you," Alex says, now clutching a thick novel to her chest. Jonas maybe stares a moment too long at the scoop-neck of her shirt.</p><p>"I'm not judging," he says. He looks over the cover, where the blue outline of a mermaid shimmers gold in the light. He is maybe judging a little bit.</p><p>Alex's eyes narrow. "You're judging."</p><p>"I'm not! I'm – look, I'll take you to the book signing. That's what you want, right?"</p><p>He doesn't know why he says it like he's conceding to anything. Alex breaks into a wide grin, and Jonas knows he would make this offer a thousand times over to see it. Fuck. Fuck, he's so whipped, how has he only known her for a couple of months?</p><p>Alex bounces on her heels like she's trying to contain her excitement, like any less self-control and she'd be jumping up and down. Suddenly she is talking a mile a minute. "Thank you! It's at Powell's at like seven! Which means we'll be there a while because, I mean, who would waste a trip to Powell's, right? I'll pay for a hotel so you don't have to drive in the dark afterwards!"</p><p>"Wait," Jonas tries to interrupt, mind screeching to a halt. <em>Hotel?</em></p><p>She keeps going, ignoring him. "It's like a two hour drive, so that's not <em>too </em>bad, but I still really appreciate it!"</p><p>"Two and a half, we're going up the coast," Jonas corrects. If he's driving, he wants the scenic route. <em>This</em> gets her to pause, and it makes him think she had been rushing a moment ago, avoiding acknowledging what she's doing.</p><p>She's bouncing in place again in seconds. His eyes dart back to her chest, still pressed against her book. For once, it seems, she doesn't catch him.</p><p>"Two and a half," she repeats, pleased. "But that means we should leave town early to make sure we're there with plenty of time to find parking and get checked in and stuff. Maybe I'll skip last period. Wait, can you skip last period?"</p><p>"Sure," Jonas hears himself answering, distantly. He's still caught on the hotel part.</p><p>"I'll go book it!" She announces, and Jonas hardly has time to react before she's thrown herself against him in a one-armed hug, the other arm still a barrier between them, clutching her book. Just as fast, she's pulled away, a whirlwind heading out of the room, yelling, "Michael! Give me your debit card!"</p><p>In the quiet of Alex's bedroom, Jonas doesn't know what to do except for put their new plans into his phone calendar.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>"No fair," Ren moans when the two of them tell him over lunch. "I want to go on a road trip."</p><p>Alex opens her mouth, says, "You cou–" then stops herself. Jonas's eyes cut in her direction, questioning. Had she been about to invite him?</p><p>Sure, it would make the ride a little more crowded, but Jonas can't complain. Wasn't Ren supposed to be his friend, more than Alex is? And he feels like…</p><p>He feels like Michael told him something about this. About never expecting to outrank your girlfriend's best friend.</p><p>Wait, no. Alex isn't his girlfriend.</p><p>Maybe he's getting too comfortable here, making too many assumptions.</p><p>But he's not the one who decided on his own to book a fucking hotel room out of town for the two of them, now is he?</p><p>"No, it's fine," Ren says, like maybe he had leapt to the same conclusion. The – the conclusion about Alex inviting him. Jonas is preoccupied. Ren heaves a dramatic, playful sigh. "Wouldn't be much fun third-wheeling anyway."</p><p>"You wouldn't be third wheeling," Alex scoffs, rolling her eyes. "<em>God, </em>like I don't tag along with you and Nona all the goddamn time."</p><p>That is not the correct angle to argue from, Jonas wants to point out. He can feel himself blushing and tries to hide it, taking a sip of his chocolate milk. Maybe his silence is conspicuous, but if so, they both let him get away with it.</p><p>Nona is the one who doesn't. When he looks up, he sees her staring at him from beside Ren, an amused smile curling her lips. Right when he meets her eyes, they slice over to Alex and back, and she bows her head just slightly, smile widening as if they are in on a secret.</p><p>Jonas attempts to psychically plead with her not to embarrass him, like Ren and Alex are apparently so inclined to do.</p><p>She takes pity on him, chiming in: "It's not third wheeling to spend time with multiple friends at a time, silly."</p><p>Ren sniffs. "It is, and in fact it's <em>even worse </em>because it's like – you know? When you introduce two of your best friends and then they like each other more than they like you? The <em>regret </em>I feel, you guys! I should have kept you apart!"</p><p>Jonas rolls his eyes, unconvinced by the dramatics. "I don't like Alex more than you, Ren. If you wanted me to drive you somewhere, you just had to ask."</p><p>"Noted," Ren says, brightening immediately. "So, next month there's this–"</p><p>"–I do like Jonas more than you," Alex interrupts, grinning. Ren makes a hurt face, the punchline to her joke. She bursts into laughter.</p><p>"The <em>betrayal</em>," he moans, but then joins into the laughter with ease.</p><p>Alex laughs so hard she snorts, and this is what pushes Nona into laughing, too.</p><p>When she's quieted down, Nona says, delicately, "I'm surprised your parents are letting you two, you know… Share a hotel room? Go, totally unsupervised?"</p><p>Jonas aggressively does not think about the condoms his dad insisted he slip into his wallet.</p><p>"My parents are a little too preoccupied to care what I'm up to," Alex says, just a bit <em>too </em>brightly. Jonas watches her, but she doesn't elaborate, and moments later she is back to bickering with Ren.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They leave before school ends, meeting up in the parking lot and climbing into his beat up truck. Alex tosses her bag at her feet, and Jonas watches to make sure she's settled and buckled in.</p><p>He shifts into gear and pulls out into midday-empty roads. The roads in Camena are almost always empty, he doesn't know why he's perpetually surprised by it.</p><p>He glances to Alex; she is already kicking her shoes off.</p><p>"Surprised you didn't get more dressed up," he comments.</p><p>"For a book signing?" She asks, amused. Then considers. "Well, maybe. I guess people do that for big franchises, but this is pretty niche."</p><p>"Very hipster."</p><p>"That's not what I mean."</p><p>"Wasn't really what I meant either. I just thought – it's like, we're going out, you know?"</p><p>Wait. That came out wrong. He refuses to look her way, keeping his eyes on the road.</p><p>"I mean," he amends. "Going somewhere. It's an excuse."</p><p>"Ah," Alex says, after a torturous eternity. Then she hums, amused. "I see. I see. You wanted <em>A+ Alex.</em>"</p><p>He doesn't take his eyes off of the road. He refuses to. "You're always A+ Alex."</p><p>He hears her cough. "Well. I mean. You know. You wanted <em>pretty</em> Alex."</p><p>"You're always pretty, Alex."</p><p>"Um." she says. Another eternity, then: "Thanks."</p><p>Jonas kicks himself, internally. Of course he says something to make her feel awkward when they are a grant total of ten minutes into a nearly three hour drive. Of course.</p><p>"So," he starts, trying to distract her from the entire conversation they just had. "Uh… What's the book about?"</p><p>Even without looking, he sees her surge forward from the edge of his sight. "I thought you'd never ask! Okay, so…"</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>This distraction tactic keeps her occupied for a good hour.</p><p>Jonas doesn't mind. It's nice to see her so excited, to hear her ramble about what she likes. She has a way of talking that makes it easy to keep up conversation, a way of speaking about the book not to summarize it, but to bring up tropes and dynamics and things that Jonas can understand without having read it.</p><p>It's easy to chime in with his thoughts about other books, other shows and movies. By the end of the conversation it feels like they've made a list one-hundred entries long of things to force each other to watch later.</p><p>Back and forth they've yelled at each other in disbelief, <em>You haven't seen it? That movie is my </em>childhood!</p><p>Eventually, <em>eventually, </em>they slip back into a comfortable silence.</p><p>Alex fiddles with the radio, putting herself in charge of changing stations any time there's a song she doesn't like or one too many commercials.</p><p>It's comfortable.</p><p>Alex, and music. It's always like this.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They check into the hotel with ease. Jonas feels his palms sweating as he takes the keycard from the front desk while Alex fumbles with getting her debit card and ID back into her wallet. He doesn't know why he's so nervous. Alex seems fine. The person behind the counter doesn't give a shit, and why would they? And why would he care if they<em> did</em>?</p><p>This is stupid. He's stupid.</p><p>Outside, they grab their bags from the truck before heading upstairs to their room.</p><p>Two beds. Jonas hears himself exhale with relief, then sees Alex's eyes shoot his way.</p><p>"What was that?" She asks, innocently.</p><p>He refuses to dignify it with an answer, crossing the room to set his bag on one of the beds while she laughs.</p><p>Things are always comfortable with Alex. That's what throws him off. She might get a bit flustered with compliments, but her comments like that are just slightly <em>off</em>.</p><p>She isn't clueless. She isn't so naïve that she wouldn't think twice about booking one room for them to share. She thinks about it, and she decides to do it, and Jonas <em>could</em> take that as a simple matter of trust, a conclusion she's come to about what role he rigidly slots into in her life.</p><p>But then she does this. Calls him out. When she catches him staring or thinking – things he shouldn't. She calls him out with this casual amusement that make it seem like this is natural. And sure, he's obvious. There's no point in hiding his crush completely, but…</p><p>Well, it makes it hard to place where Alex's feelings rest.</p><p>She sits down on the edge of the bed, then flops backwards. Her knees are still bent over the edge, and Jonas comes to stand over her.</p><p>"Don't we need to go soon?" He asks.</p><p>"In a minute."</p><p>Jonas could swear he hears a clock ticking the seconds by, but there isn't a wall-clock in the room.</p><p>He tries not to be so stupid, but it's hard. With Alex's legs splayed out in front of him; daisy-dukes over black tights hugging the shape of her. Her oversized hoodie is riding up from when she fell back; he can see her stomach through the high waist of those opaque tights.</p><p>His lips pull thin, and he reaches down to tug her hoodie back down.</p><p>His fingers barely brush against her side when she squirms away with a startled gasp that turns into a laugh.</p><p>Jonas's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh?"</p><p>"Don't," she warns, but it's too late. His mission has changed, and he leans over her, resting his weight on an arm placed at her side, the other trying to reach her stomach, fingers wriggling to tickle.</p><p>She laughs again, louder this time, but with a panicked edge. Her legs, Jonas realizes, suddenly aware that she could kick him if she flails too hard,  or just push him off of her with them.</p><p>She spreads them wider around him instead. The bed dips under his weigh; she doesn't try to escape him. All she does to escape the tickle is make a grab for his wrist.</p><p>He's stronger than her. It's easy to move despite her pull, easy to run his fingers up her side, feather-light against her thrashing and laughter. Her hands knock against his chest, shoving weakly as she gasps.</p><p>Her palms flatten, fingers spreading out. His heart rate spikes. He freezes.</p><p>She does too, wide eyes landing on his with the slow understanding of the position they're in.</p><p>She opens her mouth like she's about to speak. His eyes dart down to her lips as she wets them, as they part gently. They look soft. Inviting.</p><p>Her hands fly off of him. "The," she begins, but jerks away too harsh; one of her arms knocks into his elbow; the arm that had been holding up his weight. </p><p>He catches himself before his face lands against her body, but it isn't any less awkward. His other arm has slipped under her, between the curve of her spine and the bed, barely holding himself up and forcing her to arch up towards him.</p><p>He doesn't want to move, but he knows he needs to. He can feel the heat of her body where they are touching. He smells her perfume again, and it startles him that she would be wearing it now.</p><p>"The book signing," she tries again, her voice tight this time and her body still.</p><p>She doesn't make a move to get up. No, Jonas reminds himself. Of course she doesn't, when he's trapping her like this. He slides his arm out from under her. He backs up off of the bed.</p><p>Alex is still sprawled out in front of him, her clothes rumpled and her chest rising and falling dramatically. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes blinking rapidly like she is trying to process something.</p><p>Her hoodie is pushed even higher, now, so high that Jonas realizes she isn't wearing a shirt under it.</p><p>Jonas turns away to straighten his own clothes, tugging at the hem of his jacket and adjusting his rolled up sleeves.</p><p>The drive to the book store is painfully awkward.</p><p>He keeps waiting for her to say something, to make some easy, dismissive comment like she always does to make him feel like less of a crazy person while also reminding him that for as much as she likes him – and he's certain that she likes him quite a bit – it is only as a friend.</p><p>Her elbow rests on the windowsill and her face rests on her palm, her own sleeve covering her mouth. Her brown eyes are set on the cityscape, and Jonas doesn't push it.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They're able to go through the line for the book signing surprisingly fast. Like Alex had said, Jonas supposes. This is niche. There are enough people to justify it, but barely.</p><p>They lose track of each other in the store, after that. They have their phones, so Jonas doesn't mind. Alex is at his side, chattering about the different sections she wants to look at one moment, then the next he sees her disappearing down a flight of stairs in a hurry.</p><p>It's nice to be alone after the rest of today. After making an idiot out of himself several separate times.</p><p>Jonas browses the store leisurely, not looking for anything in particular. It's quiet, and the rows of books are somehow comforting.</p><p>He gets bored before Alex, but doesn't complain. It's far from town; he doesn't want to rush her on his behalf. Instead he grabs a random thriller from the shelves and sits down at the coffee shop inside the store to read it.</p><p>They meet up outside as the store is closing. Alex has two bags of books and a wide smile that says she's forgotten everything else about the day. It puts Jonas at ease.</p><p>The streets are not empty, even in the evening. Different from Camena. There are still people bustling by, though Jonas doesn't understand since all of the shops along the street are closed for the night.</p><p>Alex shifts the bags in her arms, and Jonas wishes they had been able to find closer parking. To make up for it, he grabs one of the bags from her arms.</p><p>Before she can protest, he cuts her off with a distraction. "Didn't know you were such a bookworm. I mean, I know you guys are all smart, but…"</p><p>"Eh, reading a lot doesn't necessarily make you smart," she says, shrugging. "And this is, like, stockpiling. These'll take me all year to get through."</p><p>"If you say so."</p><p>She looks at him sidelong. "You know that you're smart too, Jonas. You always talk about me and my friends like we're high-scoring, top-of-the-class nerds and you're some kind of drop out."</p><p>He concedes a tentative, "I guess."</p><p>"You draw these boundary lines for yourself," Alex says, eyes forward, jostling her bag as they approach the parking lot. "And then you stick to them. I hate that."</p><p>He isn't offended, per-se. Just confused by her vehemence. "Mm… What do you mean?"</p><p>If she was going to answer, opening the creaky doors to his truck and getting settled inside it gives her an excuse not to, and she takes it with an unsubtle toss of her bag and an over-loud: "I'm hungry! Can we get fast food or something on the way back?"</p><p>"Sure," Jonas murmurs, handing her other bag over to her, feeling her hands on top of his as he does.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They watch TV in the hotel room and eat McDonald's. Some stupid paranormal ghost hunter show is on, and Alex seems completely enraptured with it.</p><p>Without permission, Jonas digs through her bags to find something to skim. Something about the show is annoying him, but he doesn't want to ruin her fun. Not when every time the confident host announces something she bursts into laughter and shakes her head, as if <em>she </em>is the authority on this and could prove him wrong in an instant.</p><p>"You like this kind of thing?" Jonas asks. Alex's gaze drops to the book he's picked; the one she'd just gotten signed. (He figures he may as well read it, if she likes it so much.) He clarifies: "I mean the show."</p><p>She hums, looking back to the TV. "Dunno. It's kind of funny. You believe in ghosts?"</p><p>"No," Jonas says. "But I'd like to."</p><p>"Why–oh." Her mouth snaps shut.</p><p>Jonas doesn't particularly feel like clarifying. His necklace bounces against his collar as he moves back towards his bed.</p><p>Alex clears her throat loudly and pats the small space beside her. Obediently, he comes to sit by her side. He tries to leave as much space between them as he can; it's unfamiliar, when he's so used to the way they always lean up against each other, but he thinks about earlier and imagines this is probably right.</p><p>"Stupid," she mumbles. He startles badly when her palm finds his inner thigh, but she tugs his leg closer to her. Jonas obeys again, scooting closer until she's satisfied. She tucks her arm under his and leans into his side, shifting until she's comfortable.</p><p>He thinks about earlier, when he'd had her spread out beneath him with heavy breaths and flushed cheeks. He thinks about the boundary lines he draws, and the fact that she hates them.</p><p><em>Then tell me</em>, he wills her<em>. Tell me what to do, redraw the lines. </em></p><p>"Alex," he starts, but at the same moment she says, "So–"</p><p>They both quiet. She glances up and Jonas nods, giving her the go-ahead. He's relieved for the interruption.</p><p>Less so when what she says is: "My parents are getting divorced."</p><p>Everything else he'd been thinking goes out the window and he moves his arm to drape it over her shoulder. Her hand falls back onto his thigh, and he holds her closer to him in a half-hug.</p><p>"They just tell you?" Jonas asks, quiet.</p><p>She shakes her head; he feels it against his shoulder. "Not yet. Thin walls, no indoor voices. You know."</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says. He presses a light kiss into her hair.</p><p>"Not your fault," she mutters. She slouches down further, turning her body to curl into his side.</p><p>Jonas doesn't know what to say, so he just lets Alex curl up next to him, lets her shift lower and lower until her head is resting on his stomach. In time, she turns her attention back to the show, and he opens up the book.</p><p>She reaches up to hold his hand; his heart beats out of rhythm until he understands that she is just taking the book from his hands. She holds it out so that she can read it too, checking, "Can you still see?"</p><p>He nods, but barely processes the words on the page as they read together. He's more focused on gently taking down her ponytail, then working his way through knots until he can easily card his hands through her hair. </p><p>Eventually the book tips back out of her grip.</p><p>He almost thinks she's fallen asleep for how even her breathing has gone, for how limp her body is, draped over him. Then she announces in a light, overly-airy tone, "I don't like temporary things."</p><p>He doesn't stop finger-combing her hair, because he hears the way she sighs in satisfaction when his fingernails graze over her scalp.</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>She sounds half asleep. When he looks down, her eyes are half-lidded, staring ahead blankly. "The only value is in the eternal. I don't like things that end. They feel pointless."</p><p>She means her parents, he imagines. Or maybe she means the way her bedroom is sparse, as if in preparation for the distant day that she moves out of her parent's home. Maybe she means anything.</p><p>"I know that it's hard when things change or end," Jonas murmurs, carefully moving her hair from her face. "But forever is too long for anything. You can't keep from things that make you happy just because you're worried you <em>might </em>someday lose them."</p><p>She doesn't reply.</p><p>"You'd get bored of an eternity," he teases.</p><p>"I wouldn't," she mumbles.</p><p>They stay that way until she falls asleep, and Jonas is trapped, unwilling to wake her up and move her.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>He must have shifted down to get more comfortable in his sleep. The two of them are pressed close in the bed; Jonas on his back and Alex with her head pillowed on his arm. Her leg is crossed over his, and one of her hands is shoved up his shirt unceremoniously.</p><p>The first thing he does is brush her hair from her face, checking her expression. Her features are smoothed out with sleep, brow relaxed and mouth buried against his shirt.</p><p>Her fingers twitch against his abdomen. He tells himself the butterflies are because it tickles and squirms away.</p><p>"Alex," he says, his voice scratchy with sleep.</p><p>She grumbles a complaint and her arm drops to hold his side, squeezing him closer to her like a teddy-bear.</p><p>Then she lets go, jolting to sit up right with her hands flying off of him.</p><p>"Ahem," she says, with guilty eyes that don't want to meet his. All in one breath, she adds: "Good morning, we will speak of this to no one, time to go?"</p><p><em>Tell me where the lines are, </em>Jonas thinks helplessly.</p><p>He just nods, pulling himself up before he can draw the moment out any longer. His back hurts, even after it pops as he stretches. He can feel Alex looking at him as he grabs his change of clothes and heads into the bathroom to shower and change.</p><p>He keeps the water hot and tries not to let his mind wander too much. Tries to focus on this: Alex's parents are getting divorced. He <em>knows </em>that Alex has seen this coming for a long time, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with.</p><p>It would be kind of messed up, he decides, to make this about him. To try anything when she's vulnerable, when she's looking for some kind of support, some kind of stability. That's what the eternity thing meant, he imagines. In her own, near incomprehensibly <em>Alex</em> way, he thinks that's what she was saying. She's apprehensive of the temporary.</p><p>Afraid of relationships that can't promise they won't end.</p><p>No, even that's a self-indulgent assumption. A reading he wants to tell himself to give himself permission and pretend it's for her sake.</p><p>When he's washed and changed, he leaves the bathroom to find Alex sitting on the bed, packed and changed. She's dressed in leggings beneath that same over-sized hoodie that Jonas realizes she probably stole from Michael. The thought flits across his mind that she probably still doesn't have a shirt on underneath it and – he needs to get a grip.</p><p>"Need to shower?" He asks, watching as she holds a hair-tie between her lips and starts tugging her hair up into a messy ponytail. It's mesmerizing to watch; he likes the curve of the nape of her neck being revealed. He likes that he can see the roots of her hair, a lighter brunette than he would have expected.</p><p>"Can't, I'll bleed blue all over. Might stain."</p><p>"Ah."</p><p>She bounces up to her feet, but the smile she shoots him is hesitant. "Ready to check out?"</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They drive in silence for a long while.</p><p>At the edge of his sight, Jonas sees her toying with her hair.</p><p>"You can text me," Jonas says, a bit abruptly. "Any time. If you're stressing or – whatever. You know that, right? If you want me to just send you music, I can do that, but if you want to <em>actually</em> talk to me, I'll still be here."</p><p>Alex chews her lip. "Yeah, I know. I just… I don't want to rely on you so much all the time."</p><p>"I don't mind."</p><p>"I know. But you're, you know. Supposed to be Ren's friend, and then I'm just butting in and stealing you and making you drive me around and always dragging you into stuff."</p><p>She has to stop to take a breath, but Jonas thinks there was more she wanted to list.</p><p>Why do they always talk like this in the car? Maybe because they both know he can't look at her. It saves both of them from it.</p><p>"Alex."</p><p>"I <em>know,</em>" she says. "I just… Know that I can be… The way I can be."</p><p>He arches an eyebrow at the specificity. Then remembers the party on the beach. Following Ren down the path as he waxed poetic about Nona, abruptly switching gears to tell Alex not to be <em>the way she could be</em>.</p><p>Which maybe had been a fair request, considering she had slapped him in the face during a game of Truth or Slap, later.</p><p><em>B- Alex, </em>Jonas remembers. <em>I should have kept you two apart, </em>he remembers.</p><p>He wonders if he should talk to Ren. For just a split second, he's annoyed at the other boy. How is he always managing to say exactly the thing that cuts Alex to her core? Why is it that each time she admits some sort of insecurity to Jonas, it's her repeating her own best friend's words?</p><p>It's a flare that bursts, and then fades.</p><p>He still wants to have words with Ren, but at the same time, he knows that Alex can handle herself, can handle her own relationships that she's been a part of for longer than he's been in town.</p><p>Besides, he's sure that her having a <em>good </em>relationship with Ren is precisely why these things eat at her. Because she cares about him. Knows that he cares about her. The reason these things stick with her is that they are so close, that they get along so well. It isn't like Ren doesn't get his fair share of teasing.</p><p>"I like you the way you are," Jonas says, at length. </p><p>God, it's happening again. They're hardly thirty minutes into the drive. He doesn't have a distraction strategy this time. Abort, abort.</p><p>"I know," Alex whispers.</p><p>Abort?</p><p>"So… Yeah," Jonas mutters, lamely. Of course she knows. He hasn't been subtle. "I just… Know you're dealing with a lot, and I wanted to say that I'll. Be here. If you need me."</p><p>"I'm secretly very high maintenance," Alex says, like she means for it to be a joke, but her voice cracks partway through and it ends it on an awkward note.</p><p>"Secretly?" Jonas asks.</p><p>This time he steals a glance because he knows she'll shoot him a playful glare, and he likes the way her nose scrunches up with it. Right on schedule. She even sticks her tongue out, and he smirks at her as she huffs, slouching back into her seat.</p><p>"I like your high maintenance," Jonas clarifies easily, eyes forward. "I like being dragged around all the time and I like that you know everything."</p><p>"I don't know everything," Alex argues, but they both drop into a moment of silence for the impossible to believe lie.</p><p>It isn't that Alex knows everything, but she <em>is </em>a know-it-all. There's no getting around it. She isn't perfect. Sometimes she gets condescending when she thinks he should know something.</p><p>But mostly she just tells him things. Mostly she just <em>knows </em>things, and Jonas likes that. He likes to hear what she has to say, whether it's petty opinions or random trivia or silly anecdotes about her childhood.</p><p>"I have high standards," she tries.</p><p>"What does that <em>mean, </em>Alex?"</p><p>He should be losing his patience, but he isn't. Maybe it's the soothing mindlessness of driving. Maybe it's that they've both set the tone of this conversation as casual and both of them refuse to move an inch in another direction.</p><p>She doesn't seem to know how to answer.</p><p>To him, it sounds like she is trying to talk him out of liking her.</p><p>Is that her own fear, or is it letting him down easy?</p><p>"If there's something you want from me," Jonas says, "what I'm saying is that you just have to tell me."</p><p>"I know."</p><p>The silence weighs heavy in the car, sticking with them until they're long-since back on the winding coastal roads. Alex toys with the radio, and Jonas steals glances at her when he can.</p><p>They left the hotel so early that it feels much later in the day than it is. He thinks of offering to take her to the beach, but then thinks that maybe she would rather be back with Michael. She gets antsy when they're apart too long.</p><p>It gets more comfortable.</p><p>They chat about songs, or snippets they hear on the radio. Short conversations that die with an easy smile and a satisfied turn of her head.</p><p>But mostly they just travel in silence.</p><p>Jonas gets out of the car when he drops her off at her house, rounding to the passenger side to help her bring in her backpack and her books. She didn't need the help, but it makes him feel better than it would have to watch her fumble with the weight and juggle so many bags.</p><p>He sets down her backpack just inside the door and watches her drop her books beside it.</p><p>She turns to face him and opens her mouth, but whatever thought she'd had doesn't make it past her lips. Her brown eyes search his face for something. He can't tell what, no matter how intently he stares at her in return.</p><p>Finally, she steps closer, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing almost too tight.</p><p>His hands come to rest at the curve of her hips. She looks up at him and – he doesn't think about it. Just like wrapping an arm around her, just like kissing her hair, it just feels like the most natural thing in the world for him to lean down and press his lips gently against hers.</p><p>Impulse control is not one of Jonas's strengths.</p><p>He only really thinks of what he's doing when he feels her hands ball into fists, gripping the back of his shirt. But she doesn't tug him away, and she doesn't draw back. She tilts her head, leans up into him, and sighs contentedly into his mouth.</p><p>He pulls away slowly, easily, just enjoying the feeling of Alex letting him hold her. It's a nice moment. Easy and comfortable, like he's always thought it would be.</p><p>Until the dazed look slips from Alex's face, replaced by furrowed brows and her eyes squinting up at him. Like she's slotting puzzle pieces into place.</p><p>When she's got it sorted out, what she blurts out is: "Wait no."</p><p>And, <em>well, </em>that's not a good sign.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They don't talk for nearly a week. Some days Jonas makes himself aggressively unavailable during lunch break and between classes, and other days he thinks he is being ridiculous. That they just need to talk, that if he's going to get rejected he should just face it like a grown-up.</p><p>Whatever will be, will be.</p><p>On those days, it seems, Alex is the one skirting away from him.</p><p>They don't text, and when Jonas looks at their conversation, he realizes that it's the longest they've gone since they met.</p><p>He is already staring at his phone, moping around in his room like an obsessive idiot, when Alex finally breaks the silence. His heart races until he sees the message; then he's just frustrated.</p><p> <em>So?</em></p><p>He texts back: <em>So.</em></p><p>
  <em>So???? You kissed me. </em>
</p><p>He doesn't know how to reply to that. It seems self-explanatory, it seems like the ball is in her court and she's trying to pretend it isn't. He types out an irritated <em>No shit, </em>but deletes it. Probably don't pick a fight with someone that you miss. He types:<em>You kissed back, </em>but deletes that too.</p><p>She messages him again before he settles on an answer. <em>Dots, Jonas. Don't ignore me.</em></p><p>He frowns. If he was trying to type a response, he clearly <em>wasn't </em>ignoring her.</p><p>
  <em>I don't know what to tell you. It was my bad. I shouldn't have.</em>
</p><p>The message marks as read, but he isn't even given the dots. For far too long he just stares at his phone, feeling like an idiot, but a justifiably annoyed idiot.</p><p>His phone lights up with an incoming call, and Jonas is so startled that he just stares at Alex's name and photo until they disappear from his screen.</p><p>Then come the dots, replaced quickly by: <em>God, you're so stupid. Answer your phone.</em></p><p>It isn't very rewarding to do what she says. When she calls and he answers, the first thing she does is snap, "Hey, what the fuck?"</p><p>"Uhhh," Jonas says. "Hello to you, too?"</p><p>"What do you <em>mean </em>you shouldn't have?"</p><p>Jonas stares at his ceiling. When he closes his eyes, her voice is clear enough that she could be in the room with him.</p><p>"I just got that impression," he says. "Based on you going <em>wait no</em>, and then not talking to me for a week."</p><p>"That's… My bad. Sort of."</p><p>"Sort of?"</p><p>"Kind of."</p><p>"That's the same thing."</p><p>He can <em>hear </em>Alex frowning. "You weren't avoiding me?"</p><p>"Maybe a little."</p><p>She hums knowingly. "Mm-hmm."</p><p>"In my defense, again, you reacted to me kissing you by saying <em>no. </em>That… Does a number on the friendship."</p><p>"In – in <em>my</em> defense," Alex stammers, trying to mimic him but clearly losing composure. "I had literally <em>just </em>been telling you that I wasn't – that I didn't want that."</p><p>Jonas winces. It's a solid point. Coded language or not, she had been clear enough. He had meant to take it to heart. He stays quiet, because he doesn't want to argue.</p><p>"This is all very stupid and dramatic," Alex announces. "I'm done with it."</p><p>"Alright."</p><p>"No, pay attention. I like you. But I don't want you stuck with me when I'm – you know. Me."</p><p>Jonas presses, gently, "What do you mean? I like you because you're you."</p><p>"You always seem so sure of it," Alex mutters. "I don't get it – aren't you nervous? Don’t you, like, question it?"</p><p>"Not… Really? Should I?"</p><p>"<em>Yes,</em> Jonas, I'm a trainwreck. Christ."</p><p>"You remember that you're talking to a guy who went to juvie, right?"</p><p>"Stuff can – stuff can make you crazy. It could happen to anyone!"</p><p>"That's sweet, but no."</p><p>"We <em>just met</em>."</p><p>"I don't know," Jonas says, nonsensically. Alex is quiet for a long moment. He feels like she's dragging the words out of him with her silence alone. He braces for her dismissal as he admits: "I feel like I've known you forever."</p><p>"Cute."</p><p>"I don't know what to tell you, Alex. I like you. You said you don't want the dramatics, so. It doesn't have to be."</p><p>"It's not," she says, defensively. "But you're… You're like a baby duckling. You imprinted on the first girl you met. I don't like the idea of that shine wearing off."</p><p>Jonas shrugs, even if she can't see it. "It won't."</p><p>"Again, <em>cute</em>. But–"</p><p>Her parents. But not just her parents, Jonas knows. Her brother too, getting closer and closer to the end of his gap year with each passing day.</p><p>"–I know," Jonas says.</p><p>The line is quiet. His cell phone feels warm in his hand.</p><p>"I'm not normal," she warns him.</p><p>"I'm not going to fight you on this, Alex. I'm not going to <em>bully you </em>into – anything."</p><p>"What if I want you to?"</p><p>He chuckles. "You want me to bully you?"</p><p>There's a beat of silence before he hears her clearing her throat. "Don't–uh. I. No. I just mean, I." Jonas waits for her to compose herself, to figure out what she wants to say. She sighs, then settles on: "I'm just… Being indecisive. So it's nice to get a push, you know?"</p><p>"It doesn't sound like you're indecisive," Jonas points out. "It sounds like you're just being shy."</p><p>She laughs incredulously. "<em>Me? </em>Have you met me?"</p><p>"I have," Jonas retorts. "And I think I know you better than anyone else."</p><p>"Except–"</p><p>"–Except Michael, yeah. But the fact that <em>that </em>is your response?"</p><p>"Shit."</p><p>"There. How's that for bullying?"</p><p>She pauses, this time he thinks just for dramatic effect. He can hear the smile in her voice. "I suppose it'll do."</p><p>"I like you," Jonas says. Suddenly he feels the emptiness of his room all around him. "I'll like you for as long as you'll let me."</p><p>"That's so mushy. You're so gross."</p><p>He rolls his eyes, even if she can't see it.</p><p>"But… Forever, huh?"</p><p>He knows that it's stupid to put so much weight in anything at their age. He does, really. But he also knows that in a very random world, this is cosmic law. Alex asks for forever, and he'll make the world make it happen.</p><p>"Forever," he repeats.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Their first "official" date should probably have been something different. Something better than laying on Alex's living room floor, smoking weed and listening to music from her phone.</p><p>But it takes her mind off the small pile of boxes tucked into the corner, ready to be moved out as soon as her dad finds a new place. It takes her mind off of Michael's acceptance letter from <em>NYU </em>on the kitchen table.</p><p>"I used to make Michael playlists," Alex says, lying beside Jonas, staring up at the ceiling with her leg crossed over his. Her finger is hooked in the beltloop of his jeans, like it comforts her to have a hold on him, somehow.</p><p>"Why past-tense?" Jonas asks, tilting his head to look at her.</p><p>She shrugs. "I don't know. But I was thinking of making him a new one for when he leaves."</p><p>"That would be nice."</p><p>"Mm." She turns to look at him, but only for a moment before her eyes are back on the ceiling. "I just don't want to be like those siblings that never talk. Like… Mom and her brother? Sometimes they don't talk for years at a time. It's not even like they don't get along or like they live far apart, they just… Don't have a reason to talk."</p><p>"I don't think that'll happen to you two. Even without playlists."</p><p>"Yeah. But still. I just want to do it. I keep – I know it's just stress. I just keep having these dreams where he disappeared. Or I did."</p><p>"Neither of you are going anywhere. I mean - he's going to college, but… You know what I mean."</p><p>Alex nods slowly, but says: "Not going to disappear. <em>Did </em>disappear. Past-tense."</p><p>Jonas isn't sure what to make of that. Alex shakes her head.</p><p>"Just dreams," she says. "Anyway, I just think it'll make me feel better to have some kind of structured <em>thing</em> I can focus on. Help me pick songs?"</p><p>For the rest of the day, they listen to her music, song by song.</p><p>Curating a playlist seems impossible when Alex can't convey any coherent theme or message that she's going for. She can't even stick to a single genre. In the end, most of her selections come down to her announcing: "I like this song."</p><p>And at the end of the day, with an incoherent, completely noncohesive playlist, Alex leans over Jonas. Her hair spills over her shoulders and brushes the side of his face until he brings his hand up to hold it out of the way so that she can kiss him.</p><p>"Thank you for helping me," she murmurs.</p><p>"I don't feel like I have, yet," he tells her, earnestly.</p><p>Alex just shakes her head.</p><p>"You're here."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Anyway overall i'm not, like, super happy with this fic or anything, but I'm tired of tinkering with it. So. Here you go. SPEED WALKS AWAY FROM THIS.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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